


A Phantom and a Fly

by 5a5b5p5



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Referenced scars, implied/referenced panic attack, kinda soulmate-esque, neil rides a motorcycle, supernatural shenanigans but that’s not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27142901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5a5b5p5/pseuds/5a5b5p5
Summary: On the day of Neil’s funeral, Andrew drives north until he can’t keep his eyes open, ignoring the desperate tug in his chest pulling him back. He needs to disappear. Needs to be somewhere nothing can ever hurt him like this again.Four weeks after his own funeral, Neil Josten wakes up in Baltimore.or: how Neil came back from the dead and traveled thousands of miles to find his way back to Andrew, and what Andrew did in between.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 73
Kudos: 301





	A Phantom and a Fly

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic is quite a bit different from my usual stuff, but i put a lot of time and thought into it and i hope you like it! 
> 
> the timeline is a bit screwed up in this, since i felt like setting it in the winter and that’s not when things happened in the books, but i wasn’t too focused on that lol. just a disclaimer in case of confusion.
> 
> thank you to Renee for encouraging me the whole way through and for listening to my ramblings. <333
> 
> also, i made a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/325WDXZCky4rNXaQhK37gE?si=ppSDpmYnSN6aSiftfDCuAQ) for this fic! i had this on repeat while writing and i think they fit pretty well so i figured i could share :)
> 
> main warnings are tagged but here they are again just in case.  
> Neil is dead only for first 2k words so i did not tag character death - but that being said, he is dead at some point  
> Talk of death, torture, scars, depression, anxiety attacks, food, supernatural stuff
> 
> title from ‘phantom limb’ - the shins

On the morning of Neil Josten’s funeral, Andrew stays in bed until noon. 

He hates himself for it, since he knows he had been naïve to believe Neil would somehow survive past his first year of college in the first place, what with his runaway nature and his insistence to deal with his own shit. He’d been a walking target this whole time, and Andrew had seen this ending coming from a mile away. 

He tells himself he doesn’t care; Neil had broken up their deal only hours before his disappearance, and Andrew doesn’t owe him anything anymore. Neil had always felt unattainable and uncertain, like a wisp of smoke in the wind or the brush of fingertips against Andrew’s skin, and Andrew had been prepared to lose him since the beginning. Still though, Andrew can’t seem to drag himself out of bed, feeling weighed down and sunken in and wrong. 

As he lays in bed, he remembers Neil’s last words to him, his voice crisp and clear in Andrew’s mind as he repeats _Thank you. You were amazing._ Over and over and over again Neil’s voice repeats those final words, and Andrew hears them ricocheting around his mind like an accidental haunting. 

Renee finds him eventually, since she and the other upperclassman had stayed the night before at the Columbia house in preparation for the funeral, and she knocks gently at Andrew’s bedroom door until he grunts, allowing her to push it open. She’s already dressed for the funeral, a simple grey dress that reaches all the way down to her ankles and a pair of flats. She looks remarkably predictable, and Andrew hates her a little for it. She perches herself on the edge of the armchair in the corner of Andrew’s room. “We leave in thirty minutes,” she says. 

Andrew doesn’t look at her, staring up at the ceiling until his eyes unfocus. “Mm,” he hums, flexing his toes and stretching his legs under his blankets until he can’t anymore. 

Renee hums right back, and she’s remarkably composed. If it wasn’t for the restless tap of her pointer finger against her thigh and the slightly smudged mascara, Andrew wouldn’t even have been able to tell she’s been crying. 

_Crying,_ Andrew thinks derisively, _what good had crying ever done?_

Crying isn’t going to bring Neil back from the dead; isn’t going to please his ghost. Crying isn’t going to reverse time or make the FBI agents arrive at Neil’s crime scene five minutes sooner. All crying does is waste time, waste energy, and waste Renee’s pretty makeup. 

Despite this knowledge, Andrew feels his eyes begin to well up when Renee places her small hand in his and rests her forehead against the edge of Andrew’s bed. Usually, she doesn’t try to instigate any kind of physical contact with him, so that bit of weakness speaks volumes about how distraught Renee is at the moment. He hurriedly blinks away the wetness behind his eyes, squeezing Renee’s hand once before finally getting up and heading to the bathroom, giving Renee a few minutes to put herself back together.

He goes through the motions, brushing his teeth and taking a minute-long shower, letting his hair plaster against his forehead without doing anything about it, changing into clothes that don’t look any different from his usual attire but somehow feel heavy and stiff against his skin. When he gets back into his room, Renee is still waiting in there for him, once again calm and composed with her legs crossed and her head leaning back against the back of Andrew’s armchair. 

She doesn’t open her eyes when Andrew returns to his bedroom, and Andrew takes his time with lacing up his shoes and threading a belt through the loops of his black jeans. Without thinking about it much, Andrew grabs a reusable grocery bag from the floor of his closet and stuffs a few changes of clothes into it, heading back into the bathroom to grab his toothbrush and placing it on top. When he looks back up, Renee is staring right back at him, her dark eyes shrewd and assessing. “Are you running away?”

Andrew nearly scoffs. If he were running, he might as well start calling himself Neil Josten. “No,” he says, and Renee nods like she believes him. 

Andrew nods back at her once, hiking the grocery bag up onto his shoulder and heading in front of Renee to his bedroom door, only stopped by the sound of Renee’s voice, soft and firm and assuring. “It’s okay, you know,” she says, “to feel sad, or angry.”

Andrew doesn’t look back at her, opening the door, “I don’t feel anything,” he says, and it’s the truth. 

~

In Baltimore, Andrew sits rigidly in his stiff plastic chair as another faceless Palmetto student monologues about their _good friend_ Neil Josten. To his right, Renee is stone-faced, her hand holding Andrew’s own tightly as she fights back tears, and to his left, Nicky is sobbing quietly —probably hasn’t stopped for the week it has been since Coach had gotten that call. 

It’s a closed casket, but Andrew already knows what he would find if he were to lift the top: Neil Josten, cold and pale, completely broken and cleaned of blood, dark auburn hair fanned out behind him. He wonders if the mortician took out Neil’s contacts, or if they’re still stuck to his eyes, shielding him from his past even in death.

At the front of the room, the student Andrew couldn’t care less about finishes up their speech, sniffling and heading back to their seat. Andrew holds back from rolling his eyes. Neil didn’t know that person, and that person _definitely_ didn’t know Neil. The only people in this entire room who Neil Josten ever cared about are in the front row, and the only person who ever understood him was Andrew. Everyone else here is just for show. A classmate dies and they attend the funeral, to show everyone else that they’re a decent human being. None of them really care about Neil, not like Andrew does. They’ll go back to their lives and forget about him in a week. 

Andrew almost grins at the thought of Neil seeing everyone in this room for him. He would hate this —all this attention. Andrew wonders if Neil feels an itch from beyond the grave. 

None of the foxes make a speech. They had spent the hour before open visitation talking about good times they’d had with Neil, sharing stories, and even laughing once or twice. Andrew hadn’t participated in that either. 

Andrew spends the next hour and a half staring blankly at the wall behind Neil’s coffin, tuning out Nicky’s sobs and Matt’s whimpers. None of this really matters, anyway. Neil is dead, and there’s nothing in the entire world that could bring him back to Andrew now. There’s no point in sitting in a room with a piano and a catering service to make everyone else feel better about it. 

When the time comes, the foxes follow the mortician to the graveyard to watch Neil’s remains being lowered into the ground, six feet under, just like Andrew had always threatened him with. 

Andrew privately thinks that Neil would have preferred to be cremated. That the thought of himself taking up space even in death would be too much for him to handle, but Neil’s uncle had been responsible for the decision as the only member of family Neil had left, and that it what he had chosen for him. 

It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Nothing matters now. 

Neil is buried, and the foxes loiter by his grave for a little while, holding and comforting each other. Andrew goes to sit at the base of a tree not too far away, and a moment later Bee appears in front of him, her knee-length dress billowing in the wind. Neil probably wouldn’t have wanted her here either, but Andrew had, so he’s sure Neil wouldn’t mind. He shakes his head. He needs to stop personifying the dead.

Above him, Bee waits, looking down at him evenly until he scoots over to make space for her next to him. Andrew lights up a cigarette, not caring whether that’s allowed or not, and offers one deftly to Bee, who declines. Andrew shrugs, taking a deep drag as he stares out at Neil’s fresh grave, feeling him like a presence beside him. He wonders if Neil could see him now, offering his ghost a cigarette under the cover of an autumn brushed oak tree. Beside him, Bee is silent. She’s not his therapist at this moment, and even she knows it’s too early to try to get Andrew to talk about this. He appreciates her presence anyways, wondering if she’d cried at the funeral or if she’d just felt the same numbness Andrew’s been feeling since the day Neil died. They’ve always been surprisingly similar in that manner. 

By Neil’s grave, Dan holds Matt’s head in her lap as they sit on the nearby bench. He’s crying again, sobs wracking his large frame as Dan runs gentle fingers through his coiled hair. Renee is comforting Nicky now, and Wymack and Abby are standing silently beside Kevin and Allison. Aaron floats along the sidelines, his cheerleader’s face tucked into his neck. 

Andrew says, “This is dumb,” and it’s one of the only things he’s said in days. 

Bee hums at his side, smoothing her hands over a few wrinkles in her dress. “Care to expand?” Bee asks.

Andrew doesn’t care to do anything. He wants to sleep for days. He wants to drive until his hands go numb. He wants to slam his fist into a wall. He wants to sit under this tree forever and never move again. “No,” he says.

Bee nods, forcing her shaking hands into rest on her lap. 

All at once, the foxes leave, the sun sinking down into the line of the clouds, making oranges and pinks expand around them. Nicky comes over to tell him that he and Aaron are catching a ride with Katelyn and that Kevin is going with Coach and Abby. That he should come home soon too. 

Bee sits with him until the sun is almost gone from the sky, and the only reason he gets up from under the tree is because he sees her beginning to shake from the cold. He gets to his feet, walking seamlessly on numb legs all the way back to their cars, not looking back once at Neil’s grave. 

Once their cars are in sight Bee says, “Would you like to come in tomorrow, or shall we wait until Wednesday as usual?”

Andrew opens his mouth to reply, but he can’t make the words come out. Once they’re stopped in front of the cars, Andrew finally makes himself say, “I think I’m going to go somewhere.”

Bee tilts her head, but she doesn’t look surprised. “Do you know where?” she asks, and Andrew is almost thankful that she doesn’t try to convince him to stay. 

“No,” he says, thumb tracing the set of keys Neil had left behind in the locker room in the same way his junkie used to. 

Bee nods, “I’ll tell the others then. Will you call me when you get to where you’re going?”

Andrew nods, and Bee reaches a hand out, hovering it over Andrew’s shoulder until he nods and she places it there, squeezing once gently and then moving away from him, towards her own car.

“Come back when you’re ready,” she says.

Andrew nods, gets into the car, and drives, and drives, and drives.

He barely watches the road as his car devours it, staring straight ahead and only paying enough attention to make sure he doesn’t catapult off the side of a cliff. He doesn’t play any music through the speakers, doesn’t make any stops, doesn’t even _think._ He drives and drives until his fingers go numb, and only then does he pull into an abandoned parking lot staring down at his slightly unsteady hands as they grip the steering wheel. 

He doesn’t know what is wrong with him; he feels wrong, feels out of place, feels like he’s on the ground when he should be floating. Something is pulling him in every which way, left and right and up until it finally calms. 

Andrew looks around, grabs a chocolate bar from the glove box, and devours that in a matter of seconds, washing it down with half of a plastic water bottle and finally opening the driver's door and standing up on shaky legs. He moves to the back in order to pull a blanket out of the trunk to bundle up in, locking the doors to the Maserati and himself in the backseat. 

He grabs a pair of sweatpants he’d shoved into the grocery bag and pulls them on after tugging off his jeans, stripping himself of his shirt and yanking on a worn orange hoodie he remembers too late had been one of Neil’s.

The smell of him hits Andrew like a freight train, and suddenly he’s not able to do anything besides curl up into himself in the backseat and shove his nose into the soft fabric of it. He tries not to pointedly _sniff_ the hoodie, but the scent of rain and sweat and something indescribably _Neil_ is too compelling to resist. 

Andrew feels like an idiot. He never wanted to become attached; he’s not even sure if that’s exactly what he is, but there’s a feeling tugging in his chest he could never explain, deep and unmoving and unsettling. It lessons when Andrew takes a deep breath of Neil’s hoodie, but it returns in full force as soon as his body remembers that Neil isn’t actually beside him. 

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He needs to get in the car and drive another twelve hours, needs to turn around and go back to Columbia, needs to stay here forever, bundled in Neil’s sweatshirt against the cool evening air pressing in through the windows.

Instead, Andrew closes his eyes, tucks his chilly nose into deeper into Neil’s hoodie, and falls asleep.

~

_Andrew doesn’t want to follow the increasingly insistent tug in his chest, but he suddenly doesn’t even feel like he has a choice. It tugs and pulls like a game of Tug-A-Rope, and it’s unrelenting and unstoppable. Every moment Andrew spends resisting it feels like a moment wasted, and he feels like precious time is being devoured right in front of him._

_Every second that passes when Andrew doesn’t follow the feeling increases the feeling of wrongness in his chest like something big could be at the end of this rope — something huge._

_It pulls Andrew’s chest up until his back is arched against the surface he’d been sleeping on, and it brings him to full awareness in seconds._

_His feet move of their own accord until he’s bursting out into the open air, breathing it in as the string reels him in greedily, dragging him closer and closer and closer. With each step he takes, the pressure in his chest lessons, but as soon as he stops moving it’s back ever harsher than before demanding he move quicker._

_He stumbles through an open field, tripping over his own feet and almost allowing the pull to move his body completely. Without its influence, Andrew would crumple to a heap on the floor._

_Finally, Andrew sees a figure in the distance, small and enormous all at once, and relief blooms throughout his body as he’s propelled forward even faster. He’s almost there and suddenly it all makes sense._

_Finally, he reaches Neil, who’s just as solid and real as before, hair red and eyes blue and skin scarred and marked. Andrew looks around, but there’s nothing to see other than darkness and nothingness, Neil the only fixture in this infinite picture._

_“Neil,” Andrew says, and he doesn’t hear himself say it._

_“Andrew,” Neil replies, but it’s muffled and underwhelming._

_Neil reaches a hand out, and the now nonexistent tug in his chest seems to give a tiny nudge forward. “Yes or no?’ Neil asks._

_Andrew says “Yes,” and reaches his hand out, palm presented to Neil, feeling electricity crackle between their fingertips._

_As soon as Neil’s palm meets Andrews, they’re both jolted backwards, each thrown in the opposite direction of the other. Andrew scrambles to his feet, confused and alarmed, but the feeling in his chest is gone, and so is Neil._

_~_

In Baltimore, Neil wakes up in a crime scene, the scent of iron and sterilizers heady in the air. He can’t open his ears just yet, already wincing away from the sunlight worming its way through his sore eyelids. He feels crystalline and porcelain, breakable and still and sore. Like he’s floating above the ground, waiting for the moment he falls to the floor and shatters into a million pieces. 

The moment breaks, and he lets out a quiet hiss of pain, seeming to come back into his body fully, his moment of sleep paralysis seemingly passed. All at once, feeling and memories come back to him, and he has to clench his sore hands into fists to keep himself from blacking out. He remembers the game against the Bearcats, the messages on his phone, his last conversation with Andrew. He remembers the car with Lola, and the arrival of his father, not much else after that. 

His back is stuck in place like he hasn’t moved it for days, and his fingers are tingling with the strange feeling of electricity. Every inch of his body hurts. He feels like he’s been sliced open and chopped into pieces —which he has been— but when he dares a glance down at his own hands they’re whole, and the cuts and burns on his arms seem to have smoothed over into neat white scars like they’d already healed completely. 

Neil glances around, recognizing his location as his father's basement in Baltimore and having to force back the panic that rises into his throat when he realizes where he is. He’d spent his whole life running away from this place, from the age of eight right up until his death —which may or may not have been his actual death— and it’s jarring to see it in the daylight, even when it seems to be empty and discovered. 

As a child, he’d never been allowed down here, and he’d never been curious enough to risk exploring, much fathering to stick to the side of his mother and stay as far away from his father and his associates as possible. When he’d finally been introduced to the basement, he had been given even more incentive to stay away. 

The basement had always been dark and dirty. His father had never actually bothered with cleaning up the bloodstains from the floor, letting it build up and up in layers over the concrete floors like a trophy, evidence of years and years of torture and death at his father’s hands.

Now though, the door to the main floor is swung wide open, and there is a harsh beam of sunlight illuminating the space, laying itself across Neil’s aching body like a landmark, and the air reeks of sterilizer and chemicals, a dizzying contrast to how he remembers, when the scent of his own blood and sweat had been thick in the air. There’s nothing of Nathen left here aside from the faint dark spots of years-stained blood and Neil himself. He must have been sloppy somewhere between capturing and killing Neil and gotten himself locked up again. 

Neil doesn’t allow himself to think about the fact that he’s _alive_ right now for too long, lest he accidentally spiral himself into another panic. Instead, he stands shakily, his muscles weak and stiff and unused, placing both hands against the painted-white cinder of the walls to steady himself. 

He rests his over-warm forehead against the cool wall, allowing himself a moment to get used to standing again. He wonders idly how long he’d been… dead? His body feels far too stiff for it to have been much less than a week. 

Neil feels out of breath even from just that bit of movement, and he takes a few deep breathes out against the wall, smearing his fingerprints against it like a final bit of spite for his father, leaving his invisible mark here until someone else spills blood on the walls and they have to wipe them down again. 

Finally, Neil is able to walk again, needing to take a few breaks as he makes his way up the stairs, not interested in sticking around for much longer. He makes his way out of the basement like a zombie, sneaking his way through the house just in case, though he knows he won’t run into anyone. If Neil really did come back from the dead, he’s sure no one is going to be looking for him. 

Once he’s out in front of the house with his miraculously bloodstain-free hoodie pulled up over his head, he spots a small red _for sale_ sign staked into the yard and has to fight back a mirthless laugh. They had better be selling that house at a discount —Neil’s sure he wouldn’t even be able to count the number of ghosts who roam those halls. 

Himself included, perhaps. 

But no, Neil isn’t a ghost. He’s remarkably solid, and he feels his heart beating heavily under his skin as his feet thump against the cheery suburban sidewalks. He assesses himself quickly; his pockets are empty aside from a few crumpled dollar bills and the wrapper for a piece of cinnamon gum he’d stolen from Andrew earlier on in the day of his supposed death. 

He doesn’t know if he should look for a newspaper—he thinks he knows what he would find if he were to get his hands on one. He doesn’t even know if he should go looking for the foxes. 

Neil sighs shakily, feeling far more lost and alone than he has in a long while. Up the street, the sign for a bus station is visible, and the stubby trees lining the road spill autumn leaves onto the sidewalks like oil. It’s probably not too far past midday, and the gilded sun is high in the sky, streaking light and heat over Neil’s face and shining in the eyes of pedestrians.

Neil reaches the bus stop and glances at the schedule for only a moment before slumping down on the bench, opening the little box attached to the sign and shuffling through a few newspapers, figuring he might as well look. 

In the pile, he finds a newspaper and stops still when he sees his father’s face staring right back up at him, taking a shaky breath in through his nose to fight against the panic seeing that face still brings him. He skims through the article, reading the paragraph that details his father and Lola’s death four times before it finally sinks in. He slumps his body against the back of the bench and reaches a shivery hand up to his own mouth, tracing the line of his father's smile etched into his face there, feeling the urge to slap the expression off his own face. He knows what he looks like when he smiles like that, and it’s exactly like the man staring up at him from the black and white photo in the newspaper. 

Neil finally tears his eyes away from the paper when he hears the huffing and popping of a bus pulling up in front of him, opening its doors for him. He pulls out a few dollars from the front pocket of his jeans and hands them to the disinterested driver without a word, sitting in the back row and trying not to think about ditching Matt and Kevin to sit with Andrew in the back of the Foxes’ team bus. 

Neil feels something expand and pop in his chest at the thought of Andrew, and suddenly all he wants is to see him again. He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone for. Doesn’t know if the foxes had already played the final match against the Ravens. Doesn’t know what day it is or what he looks like with the new scars on his body. 

He does know how to get to the cousins’ house from here. He could take a few buses all the way back down to Columbia. He could hitchhike his way back to Palmetto from there if necessary. 

He doesn’t know if that’s the best decision, though. Neil is _dead—_ or at least he was. The foxes probably went to his funeral. 

The thought makes him sick. He imagines the foxes, all stood around the body of a boy who they’d never really known. They must have been beyond disappointed when they’d found out the truth about him; Neil doesn’t even know if they would want him back. His safest bet is to disappear again now while he can. To let the foxes believe he’s dead and never return to them. 

Neil could do it, too, he knows. Being known was always harder for him than living in nonexistence. Leaving now would be easier. He could hop a few busses all the way down to Georgia, find the money he and his mom had stashed in Atlanta, disappear again forever from there. If the news in the paper clutched in his fist is true and his father is really dead—assuming his revival was a one-time thing—he doesn’t even need to run anymore. He could find somewhere else to make a place for himself, if he really wanted. 

As soon as the thought crosses his mind, Neil discards it. He could make a new place for himself somewhere else, but none of them would be _here_. None of them would be with the foxes. None of them would be with Andrew, who Neil has been trying very hard not to think about. 

Now that he has though, it’s as if he can’t stop. Neil sees Andrew’s face in his head, skin pale and glowing in the light from the early sun as it shines through the team bus’ windows. Neil can almost feel Andrew’s hands on him once again, softer and more tender than anyone else would have thought possible from him. Neil can nearly hear the deep timbre of Andrew’s voice, pillowy and plush, begging for Neil to let himself soak it in. Something aches deep within his chest, pulling him forwards like a puppet caught on a string, so large and physical that Neil actually feels himself pitch forwards in his seat a little.

Neil takes a deep breath in through his nose, and the air filtering in through the cracked window is far crisper and colder than it had been the last time he remembers breathing. The string in his chest pulls once again, deep and irking, and Neil places a hand over his heart as if to calm it. 

Finally, it relents, but it doesn’t disappear, and Neil rests his cheek against the cool glass of the window, overwhelmed and lost and so, so confused. He idly wonders if this is just some sick trick the universe is playing on him; making him think he gets a second chance. He wonders if maybe he’s been dreaming this whole time and he’s going to wake up cold and alone in Millport, Arizona any moment now. 

Neil hops buses when he needs to, letting himself zone out only half-heartedly lest he miss his stop. Letting himself be carted back to the foxes, and all the while that strange tugging sensation only grows in his chest, pulling him flush against the back of the bus seat and seeming to beg him to turn around and head north. Neil ignores it, idly wondering if he’s dying all over again with the intensity of it, thinking maybe he needs to sleep and eat and drink some water in case this is his body’s way of telling him it’s shutting down.

He knows it isn’t, though. Knows it from years on the run and from surviving on nothing but sodium-packed peanut butter and water bottles for a few months in Quebec. This isn’t his body being strange, but rather something new and deep that seems to run into his very bones. It feels foreign and wrong and completely impossible, like he’s being dragged in the opposite direction no matter which way the bus turns, always pointing north.

Finally, just as the evening slips from golden oranges and pinks into the silky darkness of the night, Neil’s last bus huffs its way to a stop at a bus station in the heart of Columbia, city lights illuminating the sidewalks. Neil gets to his feet, nodding at the driver and letting his memory guide him through Columbia and down a suburban neighborhood not too far from the lights and the businesses. His feet tackle leaves accidentally, pinning them to the sidewalk, and cool night air brushes up against his arms and face. 

After about twenty minutes of navigating his way through the darkness of suburban Columbia, the cousins’ house finally comes into view, anticipation crawling under Neil’s skin as he imagines seeing Andrew again. Even though he doesn’t remember being dead, Neil feels like he hasn’t seen them in months, his heart beating faster and faster as he makes his way up to the doorstep. The lights are on upstairs, and Neil sighs lightly in relief that they’re actually here. 

Neil knocks on the door, feeling nerves and something like dread seeping into him at the sound of Nicky’s voice calling out, “One second!”

Neil clears his throat, glad for the bottle of water he’d grabbed from a gas station with his last few dollars and downed on the walk over. His throat is still sore and stiff from disuse, but at least his mouth doesn’t feel like the Sahara anymore. 

The _something_ in his chest tugs him away from the house desperately, but Neil stands his ground, bouncing slightly on his toes as Nicky’s silhouette appears behind the clouded glass of the door. Neil takes a final deep breath in, releasing it in a quiet huff when Nicky flings to door open without checking who is behind it, ever overly trusting. 

Nicky’s grin slips off his face when he sees who is behind the door, face shutters at the sight of Neil, and he stands stock-still under the taller man’s gaze, not letting his emotion and fear of being turned away betray him by showing on his face. For a few long moments, Nicky and Neil only stare at each other, until a voice sounds out from inside the house. “Nicky, who is it?” Kevin asks, and Neil hears the creak of the noisy couch as Kevin presumably shifts on it. 

Neil’s fingers twitch, and he forces himself to let out a small smile, causing Nicky to choke, opening the door wide and pulling Neil in by the front of his shirt, hugging him fiercely. Neil lets out a small cry of confusion, panic getting hold of him again, but Nicky refuses to relax his death grip on Neil’s body, holding him tight against his own, sounds wringing themselves out of his throat like sobs. Behind Nicky, Aaron thumps his way down the stairs and stops dead when he catches sight of the face of the man Nicky is latched onto. Kevin makes another confused sound from the living room, asking his question again, louder. 

Nicky finally pulls away, face streaked with tears and pain and confusion warring across his face in a great battle. On the stairs, Aaron still stands without moving, his face pale and his hands shaking slightly.

Neil opens his mouth for the first time since waking up. “It’s Neil,” he says.

~

Andrew only stops once more between South Carolina and New York State, and it’s at a shitty roadside diner, where he’d been met with one too many nosy waitresses and a mug coffee that way far too bitter and couldn’t be remedied with sugar and watered-down cream. 

Once he hits New York, Andrew finally decides he needs to sleep somewhere that isn’t his backseat. He pulls into a nearly vacant motel parking lot in the middle of a small bit of roadside civilization. It’s past midnight, and Andrew had already kicked the shit out of the vending machine a hallway down until it spat out 3 packs of miniature cookies and a bottle of water and didn’t challenge him again.

In his room, Andrew locks and bolts the door behind him before switching on the small television and navigating through the channels until he stumbles upon a _Jeopardy_ rerun. 

He leaves it playing while he starts up the temperamental shower, pausing for a moment with his hand under the spray when he realizes it’s a half-bath. Without thinking about it too hard, Andrew switches the pressure until the water is pouring directly from the faucet into the tub, filling up quickly with scalding hot water. If he leaves the bathroom door open, Andrew can see the TV from the bathtub, so he grabs the remote, his water bottle, and his cookie dinner and places his spoils by the edge of the bath.

Slowly, Andrew shucks out of his clothes, shoving aside his jeans and pulling off his hoodie and boxers a few moments later, and by the time he’s done undressing, the bath is a little more than halfway full. 

Andrew looks around for something else to do while he waits for it to fill further, spotting a few bottles of tiny complimentary bathroom supplies on the counter. He grabs the little bottle of body wash and pours it into the bath directly under the violently spewing water. 

Immediately, the soap begins the froth and bubble up in the water, until there’s a thin layer of soap at the top of the water, and Andrew turns off the faucet shortly after, dipping his foot in.

It’s scalding, but Andrew keeps submerging himself anyways, letting the hot water envelop him inch by painful inch until only his head is left above the water, his skin tingling and itchy from the heat. 

Andrew can’t remember the last time he’d taken a bath, and he doesn’t know what compelled him to take one now. It’s… nice, though, to a certain extent. He lulls his head to the side and watches the Jeopardy contestants forget what a quadrilateral is, trying his best to zone out and _not think_ for the first time in his life. 

It doesn’t really work, since the moment he takes his eyes away from the television, he spots the large map he’d picked up from a pile at the front desk on a whim. It’s folded in on itself, but from the thickness of it he knows it must expand quite a bit. 

Andrew wonders if Neil had ever used maps, or if he’d always just let the wind take him wherever it wanted him. Andrew knows Neil’s mother had carted him around for most of his life like a kitten by the scruff of its neck, and that Neil had only really been truly on his own for a few months before he’d been recruited to the Foxes, which hadn’t worked in his favor. 

Neil had always known he’d be better off as an obscurity, so why the hell had he pushed his way into Andrew’s life anyway? Andrew would have rather he’d never known him, if only so he wouldn’t be so angry every time he thought about what he’d lost when he’d lost Neil.

He’d spent the first few days telling himself that nothing had changed. That Neil’s death meant nothing because Neil had always meant nothing to him. For a few days after that, he had truly felt _nothing._ He had gone through his days like a ghost, floating along with no real motive in a way he hadn’t done since before he’d gotten off his meds. When he had thought about Neil on those days, he had felt nothing. A deep, vacant, _nothing_ in his chest that stayed until the day of Neil’s funeral, when he’d begun to feel himself being pulled in every which way like a puppet on a string.

Now though, Andrew is angry. 

He’s angry at Neil for knowing about his danger for weeks and saying nothing. He’s angry at him for making Andrew break their stupid deal as if that made any difference in the ferocity of the turmoil in Andrew’s gut now. He’s angry at Neil’s father and all the people who work for him. Angry at Neil’s mother for failing to keep him safe. Angry at the FBI for being too late, and for killing Nathen Wesninski before Andrew had gotten the chance. 

He’s angry at himself, too. For failing Neil. For running away. For feeling angry. 

Andrew knocks his head back against the tiles to dislodge those thoughts from his head. He hadn’t thought he was this particular brand of self-destructive anymore. 

He leans his head back into the now-lukewarm water and scrubs at his hair with the small bottles of shampoo and conditioner with pruney fingers, washing himself up quickly. He gets out of the water and dries off quickly before immediately slipping his armbands back on, feeling raw and far too exposed all of the sudden. 

He pulls on Neil’s hoodie again because he has always had a self-destructive streak, along with a pair of soft, faded sweatpants, flopping onto the bed shortly after he’s dressed and beginning to unfold the map. 

For no reason at all, Andrew begins to write. _Jeopardy_ plays in the background as he scribbles a circle around the city he’s currently in on the map, drawing a dotted line along the roads ahead of him. He uses his still-pruned pointer finger to trace along the highways, continuing to head further and further north until his finger comes up on a poorly-illustrated mountain range. With his other hand, he continues the dotted line until he reaches the mountains, stopping and circling the little peaks of them with his pen. He doesn’t know where else he would go from there, and he figures the mountains are probably the best place to be if he doesn’t want to be found. Which he doesn’t. 

He gives the map one long look, easily committing it to memory, and folds it back up, placing it on the bedside table and turning off the lamp. 

In the morning, he won’t bother taking the map with him, and he won’t care that anyone could use it to find him. 

Everyone of importance knows better than to try to track Andrew down anyways.

~

“What?” Kevin’s voice sounds out from the living room, a panicked edge to it that Neil knows far too well. A moment later, Kevin comes crashing into the entryway, where Nicky is still hugging his tightly, sobs wracking his frame, and where Aaron and Neil are still having a standstill. Aaron’s jaw clenches minutely, and Neil tries not to be annoyed at him for not being Andrew. 

Kevin stands in the doorframe to the living room, his shoulders tense and face tight. He’s holding on tightly to a coffee mug Neil suspects is filled with vodka, and his knuckles are white as he grips the handle of it. 

Finally, Nicky pulls away from him, taking a step back and wiping his tears and snot on the sleeve of his hoodie. And then they all just stare at him, and Neil looks down at his tattered tennis shoes, studying the frayed edges of them just to have something to do. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say in this situation. Is there a ‘coming back from the dead’ protocol? Is he even one hundred percent certain that he’d died in the first place? Had the foxes seen his body?

He only really knows the answer to one of those questions, since he’s pretty sure people don’t just disappear for an unknown length of time and then wake up undisturbed in the exact same place. 

But well, before today he was pretty damn sure people don’t come back from the dead either. 

Neil tries to think of something to say. He could try explaining himself, but he doesn’t know what there is to explain when he knows hardly any more than them. He could offer to leave, or ask to step into the living room. He could say _hello_ , like this is his first time meeting them. 

That feeling of dread settled deep in his chest hasn’t left yet though, urging him to ask one question that’s been pressing at his rib cage since he’d woken up. “Where is Andrew?” Neil asks. 

The question seems to spur the other men into action. Nicky is fumbling for his phone to call Wymack, Kevin is bombarding him with questions, and Aaron is heaving his way into the kitchen and beginning to pour a mug of vodka to match Kevin’s. Neil sighs, hands tightening into fists at his sides. 

Neil glances into the kitchen where the three men are moving in a flurry, ignoring Kevin’s questions and making his way upstairs. No one had answered his initial question, and the intense suffocating feeling only grows with his every step like cotton expanding in his chest. He glances into the bathroom and finds it empty, Andrew’s toothbrush nowhere to be found. His stomach sinks down to his toes, and he shoulders his way into Andrew’s bedroom, pushing on the open door and causing it to creak open, revealing Andrew’s meticulously organized but somehow still messy bedroom.

It’s just how Neil remembers it from the few times he’d been allowed inside of it. The small bookcase in the corner was still just as crowded, and his bed looked rumpled and slept in, his reading chair pushed up to the side of it. His closet door is open, and inside a few shirts have been pulled off their hangers and left to wrinkle on the floor. The room is stuffy and smells more of dust than of Andrew, which is telling enough in and of itself. 

Neil makes his way over to the window that faces the front yard of the house just to be sure, lifting the slats of the blinds with two fingers and peering out of the glass. In his rush to see the cousins, he hadn’t even noticed the Maserati’s absence.

Neil lets out a panicked breath and sits himself down on the edge of Andrew’s bed, gripping the sheets in his fists and trying to stop tears from welling up in his eyes. All this way and Andrew isn’t even here. He allows himself a moment to bask in the irony of the situation. Neil, who had come back for Andrew, and Andrew, who had run away. 

He lays his head in his hands, feeling frustrated and helpless until eventually Nicky calls his name from downstairs and he’s forced to face the other inhabitants of the house once again. 

Neil makes his way into the kitchen on autopilot, settling himself on one of the stools at the counter and looking up at Nicky tiredly. The man looks back down at him sadly, his phone clutched tightly in his hand. Neil suspects they’ll receive quite a few more guests within the hour and tries to push back the sheer exhaustion and wariness the thought gives him. “I assume you don’t know how this happened either,” Nicky says, gesturing to Neil, sipping out of a coffee mug that might actually have coffee in it, though Neil suspects it’s still at least half alcohol. 

“No,” Neil says back, and his voice is weak and rough from disuse. 

Nicky nods, motioning to the coffee machine with a question in his eyes. Neil shakes his head, so Nicky gets him a glass of ice water instead, pulling out some leftover enchiladas from the fridge and placing a few of them on a plate to warm up in the microwave for Neil. Neil’s stomach growls as if in response, and Nicky grins wryly. “I suspect being… away from your body for so long can work up an appetite,” Nicky jokes— or tries to, because it falls flat when Aaron sputters indignantly from the living room. 

He stumbles his way into the kitchen, says, “Are we really pretending that this shit is normal right now, Nicky? Neil is _dead._ We _buried_ him. This should not be happening right now.”

From the couch, Kevin lets out a strangled sound. Nicky throws his hands up, setting the enchiladas in front of Neil with an unnecessary amount of force before rounding on Aaron. “I don’t know!” Nicky exclaims, voice shrill, “This has never happened before! I figured it was best not to freak out.”

“Yeah, like that’s gonna work,” Aaron scoffs. He shoves a finger at Neil, “Andrew’s been gone for _weeks_ because of him. At least if he was dead we’d have a harder time hating him for that.” 

“Aaron,” Kevin says from the couch, “shut up. No one needs that shit right now.” 

Neil finishes his bite of enchilada, feeling that restless energy begin to resurface at the mention of Andrew. “Where is he?” Neil asks again, hoping for an answer of some sort this time.

Aaron huffs off into the living room again, slumping on the couch next to Kevin, who pats his shoulder awkwardly. Aaron shrugs him off. Nicky leans in the counter in front of him, eyes still pitying and sad in that way Neil hates seeing aimed at him. “After your funeral,” Nicky starts, “he told Bee he was going somewhere for a while. Sent her a text that said ‘here’ a few days after.” Nicky wrings his hands together, “I’m sure he’ll come back, but he won’t answer anyone’s calls or texts, and we’re not sure how long he’s going to be away for, or where he went—” he cuts off as Neil stands from his stool abruptly, pushing his plate out from in front of him, “Where are you going?”

Neil pauses, allowing himself to give Nicky a quick glare, “To go find Andrew,” Neil says, and the buzzing tug in his chest seems to hum happily at the suggestion. 

Nicky sputters, and Aaron laughs humorlessly from the couch. “You don’t think we’ve tried that, genius,” he asks unkindly, “he’s gone. There’s no trace of him.”

Neil feels himself connecting the dots, feels the tugging grow more intense as he focuses on it, thinks about how it always seems to be pointing north. _There is one trace of him,_ Neil thinks, but he doesn’t say it, keeping this to himself for now, not wanting to sound crazy—although coming back from the dead _is_ decidedly crazier. 

Nicky sighs out heavily, seeming ten years older than when Neil had last talked to him, bubbly off their win and clinging to Matt’s right arm like a child. Now though, he’s all tired eyes and downturned mouth, his eyebrows drawn together and shoulders tensed. It’s an unnatural-looking expression on him and Neil hates it. He sets his coffee mug on the counter and says, “I know you want to go looking for him, Neil, but I’m pretty sure you literally just came back from the dead. You need to let Wymack and the others see you and we need to figure out how we’re going to explain this to the police. We can go from there. Okay?”

The tugging in his chest that’s starting to feel like more of a small creature seems to whine and protest at that suggestion, but Neil knows there’s not really much else he can do about this situation. He settles back down into the stool, picking at the skimpy remains of his enchilada and finally letting himself let out a breath and relax. 

He still feels tense and wrong, like half of his body is missing, leaving him cold and open and exposed, but at least here he’s relatively safe. He asks Nicky, stiltedly, about what had happened to him, and listens intently to his answer to make sure he doesn’t miss anything.

Apparently, Neil had been found by the FBI, who had shot and killed Nathen and Lola and brought any others involved to jail. They had had a funeral for Neil about a week later, after which Andrew had disappeared, and it had been a little over a month since then. They’d been forced to drop out of the exy championship since they had been down a player, and the Ravens had won by default. Somehow that knowledge had struck the same level of panic into his stomach as waking up in his father’s murder basement had. 

Eventually, Neil wanders back upstairs to take a shower and change into some of Andrew’s sweats, the creature in his chest calming slightly at the scent of Andrew. Neil makes his way back down to the living room after, settling himself onto the couch beside Kevin, who keeps glancing over at him. Neil allows it, since Kevin’s probably been feeling a whole lot ever since Neil’s death, what with the Foxes ‘loss’ against the Ravens, Neil’s death, and Andrew’s sudden disappearance. Neil figures that Andrew had left Kevin’s protection to Wymack or Renee, but surely Kevin is feeling the sudden absence of Andrew’s protection acutely. 

Neil feels himself begin to slot back into place as Nicky and Aaron argue over what movie they want to watch and Kevin strikes up a stilted conversation about exy with Neil. He feels himself relax back against the cushions, resting his cheek in his hand and tentatively swiping his thumb over the fresh scars there. He doesn’t think there’s really anything _good_ about his literal death, but at least he didn’t have to go through the healing process for his new wounds. 

Sitting here in the living room of the Columbia house listening to Nicky and Aaron argue and Kevin wax poetic about the USC Trojans, it’s almost as if everything was normal again. 

He knows it’s not though, and the ever-present squirming feeling in his chest makes sure of it. It’s not normal, because he’d just woken up from the dead after four weeks of being six feet under. It’s not normal because Wymack and the Foxes are speeding on their way to get here and see him with their own eyes. It’s not normal because Andrew still isn’t here. If he were, he’d be settled on the floor in front of Neil’s legs, leaning back against him and maybe holding onto his ankle absentmindedly. Maybe he’d be sitting with his legs propped up against his chest at the window seat, or maybe he’d be out on the front porch smoking a cigarette or reading a book in his room with his glasses on and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. 

No matter where Andrew decides to be, he always seems to take up a larger amount of space than his body requires. His presence can always be felt through the walls like a reverberation, and now Neil feels his absence just as keenly. 

He wonders if Andrew would come back if he knew Neil was back, or if his return would just further complicate things for him. He wonders if Andrew will even let him back in when Neil finds him, or if he will have already moved on from Neil.

Neil would leave in a heartbeat if Andrew asked him to. If Andrew can’t handle his presence, Neil isn’t about to force it on him, and if Andrew doesn’t want him around Kevin and the others now that he knows Neil’s past, he would leave without argument. 

Neil really hopes it doesn’t come down to that, though. He misses Andrew like a phantom limb, achingly and entirely, like he’s only half of the man he usually is. Neil knows he _could_ live without Andrew, would leave if Andrew wanted him gone, but he doesn’t want to. 

Neil wants everything to go back to how it was before. Wants to smoke cigarettes on the roof and kiss Andrew until his mouth goes numb. He wants Andrew to hold him down and keep him next to him, safe in the clutch of his arms. He wants to bury himself in Andrew’s ribcage and press his face into the side of his neck in the way he knows Andrew likes. He wants to keep being _nothing_ with Andrew as he finally learns how to become _something. Someone._ He wants to be Neil Josten for as long as he can, and he wants Andrew and the Foxes by his side for as long as they’ll have him. He wants to face the Ravens again and win, he wants to go through life without the looming threat of his father ten steps behind him. He wants Andrew beside him the whole time, and he wants it for as long as he’s allowed to have it. 

But he has to find Andrew first. Needs to sit tight for a few days to get everything sorted, and then he needs to head north until he’s back in front of Andrew and the creature in his chest preens and sings. 

The front door bursts open violently and before Neil even has time to react, Matt has him swept off of the couch and is hugging him tightly, lifting him off his feet and popping a few bones in his still-stiff back. Neil lets out a quiet wheeze, trying not to let himself panic over the sudden lack of air in his lungs, and Matt quickly puts him back down on the ground, smiling sheepishly. Behind the couch, Allison, Dan, Renee, Wymack, and Abby are all piled into the room, staring at him incredulously. 

Neil sighs, not really wanting to go through all of this again, but he knows it’s necessary. Coming back from the dead is weird even for the Foxes. Neil says, “Hi,” and gives a little wave, wincing as the Foxes all start to ask questions at once. 

This is going to be a long night. 

~

Andrew wakes up from his midday nap with a crick in his neck and a feeling of dread pooling deep in his gut. He stretches out his spine and his legs, star-fishing in his enormous, borrowed bed. He checks the time on his phone and grunts when he sees it’s barely past noon. Usually, he sleeps until at least one without a problem, resting up for nothing in particular. 

He’s been staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere Vermont, somewhere along the Appalachian Trail. After Neil’s funeral, he’d driven for seemingly days without resting, only ever stopping to piss or get snacks and drinks at a gas station. Eventually, the terrain had begun to get more mountainous than his sleek sports car knew how to handle, and he’d been forced to pull over at the nearest hint of civilization. It turns out he’d washed up in a national park of some sort, according to the old woman at the front desk who had the same smile as Bee and the same glint in her eyes as Renee. 

_“Need a place to stay?”_ The woman had asked upon seeing Andrew, the delicate skin of his under eyes dark and bruised, stubble and anger crawling up to his cheeks. 

_“Yes,”_ Andrew had said, because it had been the truth. 

The woman had led him to a tiny cabin about a half-mile away from the main building and pressed a key into his palm, taking his disbelief in stride and urging him to stay as long as he needed. Andrew had collapsed against the bed almost immediately after locking the door behind him and fallen asleep for upwards of fourteen hours.

The next day, Andrew had bought a toothbrush and a shaving kit at the park’s little convenience store, as well as a tacky tie-dye t-shirt with _Green Mountain Club_ emblazoned across the chest, and taken a long hot shower, refusing to let himself think of Neil. He had dug up his phone charger and send one text to Bee: _here,_ and then he had put it on silent and went to the nearest grocery store for food. 

That’s what he’s been doing for the last five weeks, and he doesn’t really know why he’s doing it. After Neil’s funeral, Andrew had felt so disconnected from everything that the only way he knew he could deal with it was by driving until he couldn’t drive anymore. So he had. And he’d ended up here, fending for himself in the middle of Vermont and making acquaintances with the little old lady who ran the main building, who had later introduced herself as Doris. 

Andrew sighs as he sits straight up in his bed, gasping when he feels something thrum deep in his chest like the sound of a gun. Something huge and indescribable churns within him, and he feels heavy with the weight of it, like a demon sitting on his chest in the cold light of morning, leaving him helpless and immobile and wound tight. Andrew clutches mutely at his chest, feeling more than hearing the sound that rips out of his throat, until finally the enormous crash of _something_ dissipates into a small hum of electricity; the tug of a string pulling outwards from his chest, until finally disappearing, leaving Andrew panting and shaking against the headboard of his bed. 

Andrew allows himself a moment to wonder if he’d just had a heart attack.

A knock sounds at the door and nearly sends Andrew catapulting out of his skin before he recognizes the soft click of Doris’ chunky rings against the heavy wooden door. Andrew heaves himself out of bed on unbalanced legs, opening the door and stepping outside to greet her—or something like that, since Andrew is not in the business of greeting people. 

He closes the door behind himself, and Doris smiles at him slightly, looking him directly in the eyes. She’s the only person in the world Andrew has ever met that’s the same height as him, aside from Aaron. Andrew looks back steadily. 

Doris presses a warm wicker basket into Andrew’s chest firmly, not touching him directly. Andrew takes it from her, lifting the cloth from the top of it and letting the scent of fresh blueberry muffins wash over him. Doris takes a step back, “I didn’t mean to wake you, dear,” she says, and Andrew looks at her curiously. “You look like you’ve had a bad dream,” she elaborates, eyebrows drawn together in concern and something deeper, like she can’t parse out a puzzle piece’s location.

Andrew says, “I must have,” and his voice is creaky and heavy.

Doris nods in understanding, “Well,” she says, “I just wanted to drop those off for you. I’d be best to get back to the front now.”

Andrew nods, watching her hobble back into her ancient car—she’s far too fragile to go walking everywhere, but Andrew doesn’t trust her behind the wheel of that car either. In fact, he’s not sure if he trusts her at all.

Andrew had been raised to be wary of the kindness of people—to always look out for insincerities and slip-ups, and to always question the motives of others when their intent seems too good to be true. He supposes Neil and he were alike in that way. 

At the thought of Neil, the pull in Andrew’s chest returns in full force, making him stumble a step forward, teetering at the edge of the step from the cabin’s tiny porch to the sidewalk as he gets his body back under control. Andrew stands there in shock for a moment, watching Dorris’ tiny car make its sputtering way down the gravel road, looking out across the neighboring cabins, most of them empty but some not, wondering if he’s started going insane. 

Andrew makes his way back into the cabin, shutting and locking the door behind himself, placing the basket of muffins on the tiny kitchen counter and leaning his hands against it, breathing deeply in and out and willing the tense pressure in his chest to ease once again, wondering bitterly if this is Neil’s fucked-up way of messing with him from beyond the dead. 

Not for the first time since Neil’s death, Andrew wonders where Neil is now. Wonders if he’s been watching him over the last few weeks, settling a hand on his shoulder when Andrew’s chest begins to ache from his absence, or if his mind is just where his body is, dead and decomposing under the soil that’s probably already stiffened from age. Andrew huffs a laugh at his own ignorance—only he would be hung up on the ghost of a man he never even really knew. 

Andrew slices two still-warm blueberry muffins in half aggressively, spreading a generous amount of butter on each of the halves and heading into the corner of his tiny cabin where there sits a heavy rocking chair. It’s facing the small boxy television and is placed next to a window, so it’s the perfect place to be when he doesn’t feel like laying in bed anymore. 

Somehow, one of the teens that works at the park had rigged up the old television with YouTube and internet, so Andrew doesn’t have to worry about getting _too_ bored around here. He’s sure it’ll get worse if he stays for too much longer, but Doris has already offered him a job at the front desk of the gift shop, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be bored enough to partake in that willingly. 

He rucks up the blinds that cover the window until he can see outside clearly and watch the gentle fall of snow, sinking his teeth into a blueberry muffin and queuing up a YouTube video about a man trying to train his cat to meow every time he sneezes. 

He could almost be content here, if not for the pounding pressure in his head when he thinks about how Neil would have probably enjoyed blueberry muffins, and the painful burning sensation he feels every time he stays put when the feeling in his chest tries to push him in a certain direction. If not for those things, and for the fact that him playing exy is the reason Nicky and Aaron get free schooling, he thinks he could stay in this cramped little cabin for a while yet. 

Still though, as he finishes off one of the muffins and is reminded again of Neil, he knows he’s not ready to go back just yet. He needs to be able to go at least a few _hours_ without thinking of his junkie in a place with no correlation to him if he wants to be able to return to a place where he’s tied so thoroughly into nearly every object. 

He doesn’t need to go back anytime soon anyway. The exy season has ended, the foxes having been forced to forfeit against the Ravens with the loss of Neil as their ninth player, and winter break is coming up sooner rather than later. Back down in South Carolina, the early dredges of December probably aren’t even registering yet, but here in Vermont, it’s been snowing seemingly nonstop since his arrival, effectively stranding him at least until the next warm spell. 

Andrew aims to be back by January, but he doesn’t feel any sense of urgency. His family knows he’s safe, via the single text he’d made to Bee on the day of his arrival, and exy can go fuck itself for a few more weeks. 

Andrew thinks that Neil would be angry at him for missing the Foxes' final game, and then he thinks _goddamnit_ because he’s _got to stop thinking about Neil Josten._

Logically, it has to happen eventually, but it’ll probably be later rather than sooner at this rate. 

Andrew rests his cheek against the cool glass of the window and leans his elbow on the sill, crumpling up the paper towel he’d been using to catch the crumbs from his muffins and setting it down to deal with later. 

He curls up into himself on the chair, hugging his knees against his chest ad watching YouTube videos about training cats that slowly filter into videos of people cooking with cats in the kitchen. By the time he gets to videos about the catsmaking the food, he decides it’s probably time to stop. 

Andrew shoves his socked feet into his boots and shoulders into the leather jacket he’d found in the trunk of his car a few weeks ago, snow crunching under his boots as he makes his way down the short pathway to the Maserati, sliding into it and turning the key in the ignition. He lets the car do most of the work, using the windshield wipers to push the fluffy snow out of his view and driving the few minutes up to the main building. He’s nearly out of firewood, and he’s not keen on freezing to death. 

Maybe if he’s busy chopping wood he won’t have time to think about Neil. 

~

By the time Neil finally emerges from the courthouse, brand new license and birth certificate in hand, he’s more than ready to hit the ground running. It’s been five days since he’d woken up in Baltimore, confused and suspended in time, and he’s been restless to find Andrew ever since. For the last five days, the Columbia house had been a mess of people, the Foxes all having decided to stay at the cousins’ house until Neil’s departure. They’d tried to talk him out of it, of course, but Neil had been adamant since his first day back that he was going to find Andrew, whether they agreed with his decision or not. Matt had offered to come with him, but Neil had denied his offer. This feels like something he needs to do himself. 

They’d managed to fabricate a story that made some semblance of sense and the feds couldn’t really deny the story when the evidence was right in front of them. _People don’t come back from the dead, after all,_ Neil had told them, and he could imagine the tiny smirk that would grace Andrew’s face if he’d been there.

He’d been questioned, obviously. About his father, about the Moriyamas, about his sudden reappearance. Neil had played it off as memory loss. Told them that his father had faked his death and he’d woken up in the middle of nowhere a few days later and had to hitchhike his way back to Columbia for the last few weeks. It didn’t really make complete sense, but again, they couldn’t say they didn’t believe him without sounding crazy. 

And so they had questioned him, and Neil had answered most of their probing questions, purposely leaving out any knowledge he had of the Moriyamas just in case. 

Wymack picks him up from the courthouse once he’s done, and he flashes Neil a smile that’s supposed to be semi-sarcastic but looks genuine when Neil shows him his papers. The man doesn’t wait for Neil to put his seatbelt on before he’s pulling out of the parking lot, an action that reminds him almost painfully of Andrew. “So, kid,” Wymack says as he pulls back out onto the highway, “What’s your plan of action?”

Neil is confused for only a moment until he realizes the man is talking about Andrew. Neil shifts in his seat uncertainly. He hasn’t told any of the Foxes about the creature in his chest, and he doesn’t think it’s something that needs to be explicitly disclosed. It feels intimate, somehow, this physical connection between himself and Andrew. Wymack may have guessed about the nature of Andrew and Neil’s ‘nothing’ months ago, but that doesn’t mean Neil wants to talk to him about his feelings. Or whatever it may be. 

Still though, Neil doesn’t really know what his plan of action is. He’s good with directions, but Neil has no idea how far north Andrew had gone, and the guidance of his creature doesn’t necessarily seem to account for any kind of path besides a straight-shot line. Neil has a general idea of where to go, but he’s going to have to use some context clues. To Wymack he says, “I will figure it out.”

His coach sighs, all heavy shoulders and bruised under-eyes, tired and weighed down from the events of the last month. “Always do, kid,” he says gruffly.

“Always do,” repeats Neil, letting his head fall back on the headrest. The Foxes are constantly adjusting its height, and it’s wobbly and precarious when he puts his weight on it. 

Wymack takes them through a drive-thru on the way back to the Columbia house, and they park in the lot to scarf down their breakfast sandwiches and hashbrowns in hungry silence. When Neil’s taking a small break to sip at his kids-sized carton of orange juice, he finally glances up at their surroundings. The restaurant they’re parked in front of is directly adjacent to a Harley Davidson dealership, the complex-looking mechanisms of the bikes glimmering in the harsh sunlight, bouncing from gleaming metal to buttery leather. Neil grins into his orange juice, and Wymack follows his gaze, sighing when he spots the object of Neil’s focus. “Josten…” he starts, but Neil is already opening the passenger side door, leaving the remnants of his sandwich in its greasy wrappings on Wymack’s dashboard. 

Neil doesn’t really think too hard about renting a several thousand dollar motorcycle and two matte black helmets for an indeterminable amount of time. He also buys himself an expensive heavy leather jacket, and he and Wymack are in and out in the span of an hour. Wymack is watching him incredulously throughout the exchange, but Neil had called his uncle Stuart the day before last and received an impromptu transfer to his shiny new credit card of enough money to get him a modest mansion, and Neil had never claimed to be responsible with his money. 

The bike is small but Neil would be lying if he tried to say it is practical. It’s sleek, painted matte black to match the helmets Neil had picked up as well. The leather of the seats is soft and pillowy, and Neil hopes it’s just as fast as it looks. The salesperson, dumbfounded by Neil’s choice of vehicle and his insistence they make the whole transaction as fast as possible, had offered to let Neil take it for a test drive, but Neil is on a time crunch. As soon as he and Wymack are back at the Columbia house Neil is packing his bag. He doesn’t know how long it’s going to take for him to find Andrew, and he doesn’t want to take any chances. A small duffle bag should be able to fit into the storage compartment of his new bike, and while it’s going to be annoying that he can’t sleep in his car, he needs something fast and agile. 

Neil tries not to think of the last time he’d rode a motorcycle, zipping through the streets of Seattle in the dead of night as rain poured down on him, his mother clutching onto his shoulders and looking behind them every few minutes. 

If it weren’t for the running for his life part, Neil thinks he might’ve even enjoyed the experience. 

That’s not the reason Neil had chosen a motorcycle though. He could have just as easily rented a cheap, modest car for as long as necessary, but he needed something fast. Something that could get him to Andrew as quickly as possible—and maybe something that he knew would make the blonde stop and stare. 

Neil revs the engine of his bike and Wymack shakes his head at him through the windshield of his humble Toyota, pulling out of the parking lot in front of Neil. 

That doesn’t last, though, because as soon as they’re back on the highway Neil is zipping his way around the traffic, slipping between cars and feeling the wind rip at his new jacket harshly, letting out a surprised laugh as he feels the engine come to life underneath his hands, driving him quickly and smoothly all the way back to the cousins’ house, arriving long before Wymack, who grumbles his way into the near-empty house almost ten minutes after Neil. The rest of the Foxes are out by the bike, and Neil looks out of the front window to see Matt sitting on it and posing, flexing his muscles while Allison takes pictures. 

Neil shakes his head, leaving Wymack in the kitchen with a just-as-sullen Aaron and making his way up to Andrew’s room. He packs his—Andrew’s—things quickly, shoving a few changes of clothes into a small duffle bag and shrugging his leather jacket back on. He flops onto the bed with a sigh, trying not to feel anxious over his looming trip. 

He buries his face into Andrew’s pillow, where the smell of him is becoming faint and musky. The creature in his chest hums when it smells Andrew, and Neil allows it to pull him in a way he hasn’t felt in such intensity since he’d first learned what it was on that first day back. Time seems to still, and Neil’s breath leaves him in a rush. He closes his eyes and holds his breath as his chest tightens and expands in quick succession, squeezing the air from his lungs and leaving him suspended in limbo. The creature bucks and tugs against Neil’s weight, and before he knows it he’s been pulled all the way down into the front driveway again.

The Foxes startle at his sudden appearance, and Neil says his goodbyes to them in a trance, brushing off their offers and concerns and promising to call them whenever he stops for the night—Allison had taken him to get a new phone the morning after his return: something fancy and expensive with far too many buttons that don’t even click when he presses on them. 

And then he’s off, letting the creature gallop in from of him on the highway, guiding him north in a straight-shot path and waiting for Neil to find it when he has to detour on a winding road. The motorcycle snarls beneath him, and for the first time since he’d woken back up the pressure in his chest is nonexistent. He follows his creature’s path for as long as he can without needing more information, and eventually they come up on a small, rundown diner that reminds Neil of Sweeties. 

His creature stops for a moment as they near the diner, but ultimately whines and tugs at him when he pulls into a parking space. Neil brushes off the feeling with now-practiced ease, and the creature curls up in his chest for the time being, slotting its boneless body between his ribs once again. 

Neil cuts the engine to his bike, taking the keys out of the ignition and shoving his helmet into the storage compartment alongside his bag and extra helmet. He makes his way into the dinner, the scent of grease and syrup permeating the air, settling himself into a booth and waiting for the bubbly waitress dressed in red and white checkers to come take his order. He rattles off his order, shrugging out of his jacket and placing it next to him. 

The waitress brings back his food, and then his check when he’s done with it. He imagines Andrew in the booth seat across from him, his feet propped up against the edge of Neil’s seat and his head leaned back against the back of the booth, completely unbothered. He would have ordered the chocolate chip pancakes, and he would’ve made sure they put extra whipped cream on them before deeming them worthy. He would’ve drenched them in an unholy amount of syrup and stolen half of Neil’s fries when he realized that he actually needed to eat something of substance. He would kiss Neil up against the side of the Maserati—or in this case, the motorcycle—and his mouth would taste sweet and sticky in the best possible way. 

Neil shakes himself out of his fantasy, shouldering his way back into his jacket and wrinkling his nose when he catches the waitress staring at him. At his scars. 

He places his card on the tray, but when she comes back to his table to take it, she stops with her hip propped against the table. “This must be the bad boy table,” she says, and it doesn’t make any sense at all. 

“What?” Neil asks—or tries to, since it’s more of a statement.

The woman is undeterred, and she leans forward into his space, giving him an eyeful of her cleavage and _oh, okay,_ he understands now. Neil shifts backward away from her uncomfortably, and she leans back with a frown, popping her gum. “I said this must be the bad boy table. Another handsome man came in here just a few weeks ago in another fancy black vehicle. Sat in this same spot.” She wrinkles her nose, reaching out a hand as if to touch Neil’s shoulder, and he jerks back before she can make contact. “He was just as rude, too,” she huffs, picking up his check and walking away to the cashier haughtily.

Neil doesn’t pay any mind to the women’s glares from across the diner, feeling that now-familiar buzz of electricity underneath his veins. It’s too perfect to be a coincidence. Andrew had been here, and he’d been able to tell before he’d even walked inside. Suddenly, the creature's pause makes sense, and Neil already feels ten steps closer to victory now that he knows for sure he’s on the right path. 

The waitress slams his debit card back on the table, but Neil catches her attention with a quick “wait” before she can walk off again. She looks at him dubiously, and Neil offers her a sheepish smile. “That man…” he starts haltingly, “did he say anything about where he was going?”

It’s a long shot. Andrew doesn’t talk to strangers, and this woman is already pissed at him, but it’s worth a try, if only so he can narrow down his options a little more. Neil knows Andrew’s general direction, but not much else, and he needs to exhaust all of his possible leads. The waitress leans an empty circular try against her hip as she thinks, tapping long nails against the cheap plastic of it. “I asked where he was headed,” she begins, apparently putting her earlier attitude aside. “He didn’t say where. Just said he was going to drive until he couldn’t drive anymore.” She pauses, considering, “Said something about running from his past. Very dramatic.”

Neil mulls over that for a few minutes while the woman wipes down tables with a damp rag, trying to parse out anything from that conversation that may help him. If Andrew said he was going to drive until he couldn’t drive anymore, the odds are that he meant that literally. If Andrew had stopped at a diner, and probably a few other places along the way, then he probably didn’t mean he was going to drive until he had to eat or sleep. No, Andrew was going to drive until something physically stopped him. Somewhere cold and mountainous, most likely, where he’d have to risk driving his precious car off the edge of a cliff to keep going forward. 

Neil leaves the diner in a rush, tugging his jacket and helmet back on and not wasting any time in getting back on the road.

Neil lets the wind whip against his exposed cheeks and neck, weaving in and out of traffic in a way he knew Andrew would be proud of him for. The creature in his chest bounds and leaps in a nearby cornfield, whining for Neil to follow it to Andrew instead of the pesky road. 

It’s a long while before the creature stops to investigate another building, and when Neil checks his fancy new phone for the time, it’s revealed that it’s nearly 3am. Neil slides off of his bike, removing his helmet and shaking out his hair as the creature curls back up safely in his chest, much more agreeable than before. 

The building itself is a motel. It’s somewhere in the middle of a few other stores and restaurants, and the flickering neon light from the large vertical sign reflects dreamily off the shining metals of his motorcycle. It feels unreal, and his worn-out sneakers creak as he rocks in place, strangely mesmerized by the energy of the structure before him. 

Moss and vines are climbing up the sides of the motel, and the windows of the rooms inside are mostly darkened either from vacancy or from the tired hour. It’s captivating in a way Neil doesn’t really understand. Neil wonders if Andrew had stopped here for the night because he had felt the same, or if it only felt this way for Neil because he knew Andrew had been here. 

Neil pushes his way into the door, and a far-too-chipper middle-aged woman with green hair takes his credit card before pushing a key into his hand without much issue. Neil doesn’t react to her cheery goodbye or her insistence that he call the front desk if he needs anything, but she doesn’t seem bothered. 

Neil finds a vending machine on the way to his room, punching in a few numbers and having to put in his dollars four different times to get the thing to accept it. Finally, a bottle of water, a red Gatorade, and a peanut butter granola bar tumble down, and he piles them in his arms, trying to balance his spoils and his bag while also keeping one hand free to unlock and open the door to his room. 

Strangely, Neil feels a pang of longing in his chest for Andrew. It’s not his proudest moment, but Neil really wishes the blonde were here with him now, and not only to help him carry his shit. 

Andrew has a steady insistence to him. Neil could always count on him to hold him up, and he could trust Andrew not to let him tumble to the ground like the granola bar currently tucked between Neil’s chin and shoulder. Andrew would never let him be a granola bar. Or something. 

Neil finally comes up upon his door, unlocking it quickly and flicking the light on with his elbow. He dumps his stuff on the single full-sized bed and flops down alongside it unceremoniously, letting out a quiet huff as he lets his exhausted body relax. 

Neil could fall asleep just like that; shoes and leather jacket and lights on and all, but he forces himself to get up. He firstly checks to make sure the door is locked and that he’s checked all possible hiding places before he allows himself a quick shower. He scrubs off the layers of sweat and dirt off of his skin, letting his head knock against the cool tile of the shower wall. 

He wonders how close Andrew is. Wonders how much longer he’ll have to keep looking before he finally finds him. Wonders if Andrew’s all alone wherever he is, or if he’s already found someone he likes better than Neil. Maybe he’ll turn Neil away when he finally gets to him, or maybe he’s found another man he can tolerate up in the mountains who is less complicated than him and doesn’t casually come back from the dead.

The water starts to run cold, and Neil hurriedly rinses the last of the shampoo out of his hair. By the time he turns the water off, he’s frozen and shivering, eager to get under the covers, but something on the bedside table snags his attention. 

It’s a map; a copy of one that Neil saw in a pile at the front desk of the motel. The cleaners must have missed it from the last person to have this room—if this place even had cleaners. He unfolds the map gently, spreading it out until it’s taking up the entire lower half of the bed. 

He blinks in surprise when he realizes that the map has already been heavily annotated, red markings and writings scribbled over its entirety. When he realizes that he _recognizes_ this handwriting, a gasp wrenches its way out of Neil’s throat. 

It’s Andrew’s, there’s no doubt about it in Neil’s mind. The same looping _A’s_ and sloping _K’s_ he’d seen countless times on Andrew’s scant English notes are scribbled onto the map, detailing his trip from the motel to the small sliver of the Appalachian mountains in Vermont. 

Andrew’s map tells him that he’s somewhere in rural New York State, which means Andrew can’t be more than a couple hours away, assuming he’d stuck to his plan and hadn’t gone any farther beyond those mountains. 

The creature in Neil’s chest leaps in anticipation, and Neil can’t help but agree, even as he feels nerves and anxiety tugging lightly at him as well.

If all goes well, he’s going to see Andrew again tomorrow. 

~

Andrew’s been having dreams. 

He’s not sure what they mean—or even really what goes on in them—but he’s been having them nonetheless. 

They always start the same way, with Andrew being yanked out of bed by that same feeling that’s been present in his chest since Neil’s death though it’s usually heightened to an almost unbearable degree, his chest feeling hollowed out from it and his stomach aching from the pressure. He’s always dragged along, his feet unless when he has this invisible presence pulling him along, faster and faster until he sees a figure—Neil’s figure—in the distance. They always say each other’s names, maybe something else if they have the time, but the pressure in his—and presumably Neil’s—chest begs Andrew to touch him. And they try—they try so hard—but right before their skin can meet they’re shot away from each other, both Neil and the tug in his chest nowhere to be seen when he scrambles back to his feet, helpless and alone in the dark once again. 

It’s fucking weird.

Andrew considers calling Bee to ask her about it, but that would mean he’d have to charge his phone and face the messages and calls from Nicky and Aaron, and probably some angry voicemails from Kevin about missing practice, which he doesn’t think he could handle very well right now. Renee is the same deal.

Which leaves Doris. 

The woman, unfortunately, has been growing on him. She brings him muffins and cookies and pies every once in a while, and he finds it amusing when she bitches about the useless teenagers who work in her shop. She isn’t Bee or Renee, but until Andrew is able to face them again, he figures she’ll do.

Andrew drags himself out of bed and makes himself drink two glasses of water along with the last two blueberry muffins he warms up for breakfast and driving down to the front building shortly after. 

He opens the door, and the bell over the door rings as he steps inside. Heat washes over him, and he shivers thankfully, his nose red and cold just from the short walk from his car to the front. Doris pops her head out from behind a shiny wooden pillar, and she motions for him to join her behind the counter. 

She’s counting change from the cash register, most of which was probably Andrew’s at some point since he’d been forced to buy from the gift shop much more than he was happy with. Doris’ cat hops onto the counter with a delicate landing, his little bell collar jingling merrily. Doris reaches out a hand to pet his tiny squashed face, tracing her finger over the divots of his torn ear gently. The cat, which Doris had told Andrew she’d found in her neighbor's flower bed before moving out here, was appropriately named Tulip, and he followed the old woman everywhere. 

Tulip jumps into Doris’ lap, ignoring Andrew as per usual, and Doris pulls out the extra chair for Andrew to sit on. 

He does, watching the gentle fall of snow outside the window as he mulls over his words carefully, thinking about how much information he wants to give Doris. The sunlight shines brightly despite the snowfall, reflecting light off the pearly whiteness of it and glaring into Andrew’s sore eyes. Andrew can imagine how the snow would feel under his hands, cold and fluffy and buildable and breakable all at once. Contradictory in the way all the best things are, cold and burning against his bare skin. 

Andrew had always craved those contradictions. Needed them to keep him busy. It figures that the first time one of them had actually stuck it had been gone before he’d even so much as noticed its importance. 

Neil Josten had clung to his fingertips like the sticky curl of frosting on his tongue or the heady burn of whisky against his throat. He’d hung onto Andrew like a daydream, clingy and annoying and never overstepping. Lying and thieving and honest and true. Contradictory. Interesting. Neil. 

Andrew notices his heart begin to beat faster, and his fingers twitch against his will, edging him infinitesimally closer to the door, begging him to head south in that same way it has been for weeks. 

Andrew forcibly stills them, tearing his eyes away from the window and focusing them back on Doris, who is already watching him curiously, waiting for him to make the first move. 

He clears his throat. Taps his foot once, twice, three times against the polished wooden floor. Takes a deep breath he hates that he needs. Says, “I’ve been having dreams,” which seems like a good first step. 

Doris tilts her head at him, stroking bony fingers along Tulip’s fluffy grey coat. Her hair seems to match perfectly, and her bright green eyes are a direct reflection of the cats. Andrew shivers slightly, only now noticing the unsettling similarities between them. “I suppose there’s something abnormal about these dreams?”

Andrew blinks. Settles his elbow on top of the front counter and rests his head in the open palm of his hand. “Yes,” he says, “they don’t stop when I wake up.”

“Hmm,” Doris hums, tracing her thumb over the delicate furl of Tulip’s ear again, causing the cat to flick it in annoyance and mew at her softly. “Do you care to explain what the dreams are about?”

She reminds him endlessly of Bee in this way. Never demanding anything from him, even in the form of a question. It’s always _would you like to tell me why_ rather than _will you tell me why_ with them. Andrew also finds her in the curls of Doris’ fingers around a mug, though he knows it’s full of tea rather than hot chocolate, and in the way she quirks her head to the side when Andrew says something particularly troubling. 

Andrew thinks of the best way to explain himself before deciding that he might as well not sugarcoat it. Doris seems to be worryingly of the _go with the flow_ nature, and Andrew doubts he’s ever going to see Doris again once he goes back to Columbia. “Someone I knew died,” Andrew begins, keeping his voice and expression carefully blank. “I… knew him well. I keep dreaming about seeing him again, and when I wake up I feel like I’m being pulled in the same way I am in the dream.”

Doris’ eyes have taken on an undertone of something stormy and unknowable, but it disappears as soon as it had appeared, leaving only the bright gleam of thought behind her eyes. She places her hand on top of Tulip’s paw. Says, “Did I ever tell you I had a twin brother?”

Andrew clenches his jaw tightly, feeling a sudden rush of _something_ swell up over his spine like the beginnings of a nightmare. He shakes his head silently. 

Doris keeps her voice that same low tone, like this is a story she’d told many times. “We were very close,” she says, “he was hit by a car one day while we were playing out in the yard. Drunk driver.”

Andrew keeps silent, feeling enraptured and uncertain, his chest twitching forwards minutely.

Doris clasps her hands together in her lap. “We were seven, and I was completely destroyed over his loss. Until one day I found Tulip digging up our neighbor's flowers. The same ones my brother always used to mess with. Suddenly it was like I was cured. I didn’t cry over my brother anymore, and I kept Tulip with me everywhere I went.” She looks back up from her lap into Andrew’s eyes, signaling it as his turn to speak. 

“Seventy years is a long time for a cat to live,” Andrew says, needing confirmation. Needing something to tell him that they’re not just both going crazy. 

Doris nods, and Tulip rubs his head into her shoulder, curling up there and promptly falling asleep. “You don’t have to believe me,” Doris says simply, cradling her cat closer into her chest. “All I’m saying is that sometimes the universe has its own way of doing things. Sometimes things have a tendency to come back to us, Andrew, whether we’re ready for it or not.”

Suddenly, Andrew can’t stand to be here anymore. Doris and Tulip watch him calmly with matching eyes as Andrew gets to his feet hastily, walking quickly out of the front door, obnoxious bell ringing loudly above his head. 

He feels the same rushing in his ears that he’d felt when Neil’s death had first been confirmed. Feels himself getting lightheaded and dizzy as he walks down a trail he’d never bothered exploring before, snow crunching under his heavy boots and little flakes falling on his lips and cheeks, melting immediately upon contact. 

He feels something in his chest humming as he trudges further and further up the trail, and he wants to slam his fist into his own ribcage and tear this feeling out of his body. 

It’s ridiculous. Completely impossible, for what Doris was insinuating to be true. He remembers a faraway conversation on the rooftop of Fox Tower with Neil. _Sunrise,_ he had said, _Abram, death. These are truths._

Death is death is death, and the last thing Andrew Minyard will ever do is get his goddamned _hopes up_. He’s not a child wishing for a pony for Christmas or writing letters to Santa to bring his old dog back from the dead. 

Andrew comes to the top of the trail finally, where an eerily familiar-looking plateau of land spreads out into the velvety sunset. 

He remembers vivid dreams of stumbling through this very field in the inky dead of night, being led by the hand by a snarling glow-in-the-dark creature.

In his chest, that very same creature growls quietly, and Andrew finally feels himself begin to crumble.

He falls to his knees in the snow-covered meadow, and the creature finally bursts from his chest, a glowing, dark mass of teeth and other features he can’t quite make out. It circles Andrew protectively, and Andrew remains there on his knees, stock-still and suspended until night falls and he sees a figure coming in to view over the edge of the mountain. 

~

The wind whips at Neil’s leather jacket as he zips his way through traffic, trying to keep control of his motorcycle on the ice-cold roads that have gradually become littered with salt. His helmet keeps the wind and snow out of his eyes, but it has become harder and harder to see more than ten feet in front of him as he delves further into the snowstorm. 

He knows, objectively, that this isn’t a good idea. The lady at the front desk of the motel had told Neil about the blizzard scheduled to hit from the north, but Neil couldn’t bring himself to camp out in that room for who knows how long when he could feel Andrew’s presence underneath his skin as if he were only minutes away as opposed to hours. 

In the last few hours that he’s been on the road, the tugging from his chest has become more intense than ever before, physically tugging him forward and nearly flinging him off his bike on multiple occasions. The creature sprinting alongside him now as it gains a better idea of where Andrew is.

Slowly, the storm worsens, and with it, the traffic fizzes out until Neil is the only one in sight as he makes his way up a winding mountain road. He’s shivering in his leather jacket, but it’s as if he can’t even feel the cold anymore, all his focus on the task at hand as he races up the mountain as fast as he can while on a motorcycle in a blizzard. 

When before the pull in his chest had been eerie and terrifying, and then a warm reminder of Andrew, it now feels like something else entirely. Neil feels rushed with anticipation, like there’s electricity surging through his veins rather than dread or uncertainty.

The creature runs up ahead of him on the winding mountain path now, still not quite a physical form but something more real than it had been before; a shining beacon of light in the middle of this storm, leading him closer and closer to Andrew until he begins to feel his bones shiver with energy, his teeth chattering together and his numb fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the handle of his bike. He can feel his heart beating faster with every mile closer he gets to Andrew, and he wonders if Andrew’s feeling the same. Wonders if Andrew’s put two and two together yet and knows Neil is coming to find him, or if he’s just as confused and overwhelmed now as Neil had been at first.

Neil lets himself be guided up the increasingly precarious road until it comes to a stop, parking his bike in a vacant parking spot in front of a large cabin-like structure. 

He doesn’t stop to investigate, already feeling himself beginning to walk in the direction of a near-invisible, snow-covered trail. He floats past the building's windows like a phantom, catching a flash of grey in the window but not bothering to look towards it. 

He doesn’t even seem to be able to think as his feet move without his permission, pulling him up the snowy trail as the sun slips down from the sky, leaving streaks of pink and orange across the clouds until finally, darkness falls around him, and all Neil can see is his brightly-glowing creature bounding ahead of him along the beaten path. 

Finally, Neil crests the hill and is spat out on top of a large plateau of land, spanning out across the inky darkness of the night. 

Not too far away, Neil can see something dark, so all-consuming that it almost seems to produce light. 

Neil draws closer, almost completely off his feet now, his heels drag in the hardening snow as he’s pulled above the ground by the pressure in his chest. Finally, Neil spots the figure of a small man he has been looking for this whole time, his blonde hair reflecting the light from Neil’s creature blindingly. 

Andrew has his eyes closed, and his arms hang limp and heavy behind him as he’s pulled a few feet off the ground by his chest. Neil wants to reach out and touch him desperately, but Andrew is still too far away, and he knows better.

Below them, Neil watches his creature bound up to the dark mass of Andrew’s, both of them circling around each other cautiously. In front of him, Andrew’s golden eyes open slowly, his lips blue and chapped from the cold, his arms still dangling behind his body. 

Andrew closes his eyes again, but they snap open just as quickly when Neil sighs out a quiet “Andrew.”

Andrew is pushed further towards Neil, his eyes locked onto Neil’s own in the bright light of their creatures, who are now curled up into each other on the snowy ground beneath them, unmoving. “Neil,” Andrew says back, and it feels like a conversation they’ve had many times before. 

“Yes or no?” Neil asks, because he will always ask. 

“Yes,” Andrew breathes out and extends his hand palm out in Neil’s direction.

Neil takes a deep breath, wondering if this is where it's all going to fall apart again. Wondering if Andrew doesn’t really want him here, or if he’d overstepped by tracking him down when he’d obviously set out to be alone. 

He decides that they should just cross that bridge when they come to it, and he reaches his own hand out to meet Andrew’s. 

It feels like a shock to his system. Like a bucket of cold water over his head or the slide of two puzzle pieces coming together. It feels like nights on the roof sharing cigarettes, or a warm hand at the back of his neck. Feels like the adrenaline pumping in his body when the goal lights up red behind Neil’s shot, or the sweet chill of Andrew’s mouth on his after Andrew’s been eating ice cream. 

It feels like coming home, in every way possible. 

The moment their hands touch feels like an infinity, Andrew’s eyes wide and shining in the darkness. In reality, it only lasts a second or two, and before Neil can make sense of it, their creatures disappear from underneath them and Neil and Andrew are tumbling back onto the snowy ground in a tangle of limbs, the night pitch black once again aside from the shine of the moon and stars.

Neil can just barely make out the outline of Andrew above him in the darkness. The blonde has Neil’s frozen hand clasped in both of his own, pressing it against his rapidly beating heart. Neil pulls Andrew’s hand up to his face slowly, allowing Andrew plenty of time to pull away if need be, and presses his lips against the back of Andrew’s hand, smiling slightly when Andrew shivers either from the cold or from the sensation. “I missed you,” he says, and Andrew sighs out shakily. 

“Junkie,” Andrew says, and his voice is deep and raspy. 

Slowly, their surroundings come back, and Neil frowns when he realizes how badly Andrew is shivering against him, his lips chapped and blue and his fingertips frozen and dry. “How long have you been out here?” Neil asks, but Andrew doesn’t answer, instead pulling himself and Neil to their feet and guiding them back down the mountain in the pitch dark, using only his memory and the light of the moon to guide him back, a cold hand clasped onto Neil’s own as to make sure he doesn’t lose him. 

Andrew leads him all the way back to the main building, shoving him towards the passenger’s seat of the Maserati. 

Neil sinks into the cool leather of the familiar seats and lets out a relieved sigh, breathing in the smell of Andrew and cigarettes and home, feeling more at ease than he has since he’d woken up. 

Andrew is twitchy for the whole 5 minute drive, his hand reaching out in Neil’s direction before he snatches it back and places it safely on the wheel. 

Neil wants nothing more than to hold Andrew’s hand. Nothing more than to curl up next to Andrew and fall asleep pressed against him and never let him go again, but he knows that’s not how this works, and that Andrew is more likely than not going to have questions that he needs Neil to answer before he can touch him again. 

Neil sits on his hands to keep them from reaching out as well, still not used to having complete control over his body once again. 

Andrew parks the Maserati in a small parking lot in front of a tiny cabin with two windows and s faint trickle of smoke billowing out of the chimney, getting out of the car and not waiting for Neil to follow. 

He does, of course, and he follows Andrew all the way up the snowy cobble path and through the door, where he’s met by warmth and the all-encompassing smell of Andrew. 

He’s still shivering from the hours of traveling on a motorcycle in a blizzard wearing nothing but a leather jacket and jeans, and Andrew isn’t doing much better, his fingers stiff and cold where they grip Neil’s chin tightly, bringing his face closer to Andrew’s as he studies him. “Tell me,” he demands, voice rough.

And so Neil does. He tells Andrew about waking up in his father’s abandoned basement right where he had died, and about bus-hopping his way all the way back down to Columbia. He tells him about seeing Nicky and the others, and about finding out Andrew wasn’t there. He tells him about the story they’d told the FBI, and the phone call to his uncle Stuart that had ended in a direct deposit to his bank account. Andrew’s eyebrow twitches when Neil tells him about the waitress at the diner, but his face quickly falls blank again when Neil begins to explain the strange tug he’d been feeling in his chest and how it wasn’t quite enough to lead him directly to Andrew. He tells him about the dinner and the motel and the map, and about the creature that had been traveling alongside of him the whole way, leading him right back to Andrew. Right back home. 

In turn, Andrew tells him in scant detail about what he’s been up to, leaving out the parts about before Neil’s funeral that the Foxes had already told him about. He tells Neil about stopping at the dinner and feeling compelled to tell the waitress his plan. About the motel and his random urge to mark down his route on the map. About finding Green Mountain Club and meeting Doris and her cat who had also apparently come back from the dead. About stumbling blindly up the same path he’d been seeing in his dreams for weeks. 

They whisper their stories into the quiet of the night, only broken by the crackling of the fresh wood Andrew had tossed in the fireplace, and when they’re done talking, the silence buzzes around them. “Well,” is all Neil can think to say, “at least _I_ didn’t come back as a cat.” 

Andrew scoffs at him quietly, pushing his hand underneath the collar of Neil’s t-shirt and feeling the cold skin there. “I want to see,” Andrew says, tugging at Neil’s jacket. 

Neil nods, understanding Andrew’s request, shucking off his jacket and pulling his t-shirt over his head. 

Neil hasn’t really allowed himself to look at his body in the mirror since he’d woken up, too afraid of what he might find in the new wreckage of his skin. Andrew traces a few new scars along the delicate skin of his ribs and stomach, pressing his thumbs gently into the whorls of the burn marks on Neil’s cheeks and forearms. “I haven’t looked at them too closely,” Neil says into the silence, and Andrew hums, not looking up from where he’s brushing over the old bullet wound the same way he has dozens of times before. 

Finally, when Andrew’s looked his fill, he tugs at the waistband of Neil’s jeans, causing Neil to raise an eyebrow. Andrew tugs again, insistently, “The news said that he cut your Achilles,” he says, and Neil’s small smile falls. 

He allows Andrew to tug his jeans off of his legs and toss them into a far corner, pushing Neil to sit on the edge of the bed and lifting one of Neil’s ankles up to his face, inspecting carefully. There, he finds a few nasty scars along Neil’s heel and the backs of his knees. If Neil had been able to survive his father, he would have never walked again. 

He feels his breathing begin to quicken at the thought and Andrew drops his ankle back to the ground quickly, moving to stand between his legs, his strong hand pressed against the back of Neil’s neck, pushing his head down between his knees. “Breathe, rabbit,” Andrew says lowly, and Neil wheezes in a few short breaths. “You are Neil Josten,” Andrew continues, stroking a thumb over the hair at the back of Neil’s neck, “You are number ten for Palmetto State University. Your father is dead, and you are not. Nothing else can hurt you now.”

Slowly, Neil’s breath returns to him, and he lets out a quiet noise into the crook of his own knee, only lifting his head back up when he feels Andrew shiver violently against him. He looks up at the blonde, frowning, “You probably gave yourself pneumonia,” he says, only half joking. “You need a warm shower.”

Andrew looks down at him blankly. “Says the man who just drove eleven hundred miles in the middle of a blizzard in nothing but a cheap leather jacket.” 

Neil frowns, “Only 100 of those miles were in a blizzard,” he argues, “and the jacket was expensive.”

Andrew tugs at one of the sleeves of the jacket from where it lays limply on the bed. “It’s cheap,” he says, “you paid for the logo. Not that you would know anything about Harley Davidson.”

Before Neil can open his mouth to argue, Andrew is pulling him towards the cramped bathroom and turning the shower on, letting it spew out cold water and warm up. Andrew looks up at Neil and asks, “Yes or no?” 

Neil nods easily, allowing Andrew to pull his boxers down, brushing his lips gently over his shoulder before shoving him under the water. Neil rolls his eyes, getting to work on washing his hair with the coconut-scented shampoo Andrew has sitting on the little shelf, trying not to focus on the sound of Andrew’s jeans hitting the floor on the other side of the curtain. 

Neil closes his head, tilting it back into the hot stream of water, hearing Andrew push the curtain aside and step into the shower behind Neil.

Neil keeps his eyes on the wall in front of him, feeling Andrew’s presence behind him like an instinct, his arm brushing against Neil’s back as he reaches past him for the shampoo. Neil catches a flash of familiar black fabric in his peripheral and quickly closes his eyes. He hadn’t been given permission to look at Andrew in such a vulnerable state yet, and he won’t allow himself to break that trust even by accident. 

Neil continues to wash himself, rinsing out the last of the shampoo from his hair and taking a step forward to allow Andrew to do the same, grabbing the bar of soap off the bench and frothing it up between his hands blindly. 

Andrew’s hands wrap around Neil’s shoulders, lightly pushing on them, turning Neil around to face him, and Neil goes willingly, keeping his eyes shut tightly. He feels more than hears Andrew’s exasperated huff of breath, quickly followed by a soft ghost of a touch against Neil’s cheek. Neil leans into the touch, feeling Andrew’s thumbs caressing the delicate skin of Neil’s under eyes, his short thumbnails scratching lightly against the apples of Neil’s cheek.

Unsurprisingly, Neil finds himself wishing they could stay here, frozen in time like this forever. For the past week, Neil had been caught up in a tsunami, and he had been able to feel himself floating along the roiling waters, drawing closer and closer to the height of it all. Finally, it had all come crashing down, electricity under his palms as the wave caught the attention of the incoming thunderstorm, the waves pulling him _up and up and up_ until there was no water left—just the frozen air and the scent of ozone and rain. 

But Andrew had been there, just like Neil always knew he would be. Andrew had been there, caught up in the same thrashing tide—the same reckoning disaster—but he had somehow also been able to catch him, just like he always has. The memory of Andrew’s shaking hands tugging Neil’s own to his beating heart, frozen and bitten from the bitter cold is not hard to conjure. He sees Andrew in that field again, where they had come back together only hours before, on his knees with his hands folded in his lap and his head tilting towards the sky as if begging the lightning to strike him down. 

Neil doesn’t know what he would have done if he had crested that hill and been met with only inky darkness and a fragile sense of sanity. Doesn’t know if he would have kept looking or simply crumbled to his own knees in the snow. Wonders if he would have known where to go from there; doesn’t think so. 

_God,_ Neil thinks as Andrew’s pinky brushes up against the lobe of his ear, _how self-destructive we both are._

Andrew’s voice cuts through the haze in Neil’s mind, pulling him out of his just as he’s pulled him back from trouble so many times before. “You can look,” he says, and Neil is shocked to hear that he’s whispering, seemingly caught under the same spell as Neil, “it is a yes.”

And so Neil opens his eyes and looks right into Andrew’s, cataloging the shift in them from before. Out in the field, caught in the ethereal light from their joining creatures, Andrew’s eyes had been molten and electric. Liquid gold with flecks of greens like trees poking through the sunset-lit sky. 

Now though, under the cheap florescent lights of the cramped cabin bathroom, Andrew’s eyes are shades of the deepest browns, and they look like warmth and safety and home.

In front of him, Andrew’s breath hitches as he stares right back into Neil’s blue eyes, and Neil takes that as his cue to move his gaze elsewhere. He lets his eyes travel over the sharp, freckled skin of Andrew’s cheekbones and move down to the sharp jut of his jaw. His delicate neck and sloping jaw and his broad chest Neil wants nothing more than to lean against and forget about his worries. The strong arms and matted hair now darkened and plastered to his forehead. The thick waist and thighs, covered by a small layer of squishiness that comes along with consuming sugar at the rate he does. 

Neil thinks he would give it all away again to feel this way forever. To feel this peace and this calmness and something closer to happiness than he’s even felt before, this bone-deep contentment. 

Andrew’s rough hands soft against his freshly scarred face, his elbows resting against Neil’s shoulders. Andrew standing before him in nothing more than his boxers and armbands with so much pale skin in front of him and so much trust settled in the air between them. 

Andrew leans in closer, and Neil meets his eyes once again, feeling pinned in place by his steady gaze in the best ways possible. The hands on Neil’s cheeks firm up, tightening and holding him still and close. “Yes or no?” Andrew asks, and Neil feels his own breath hitch at the words. 

“Yes,” he sighs, and Andrew leans in.

 _Finally,_ Neil thinks, letting out a shuttering breath into Andrew’s mouth. _It’s been so long, finally._

And it has been. Neil may have only woken up a week ago, but his body reacts to Andrew’s like it’s been months, and Neil is suddenly starving. He opens his mouth when Andrew presses his tongue against the seam of his lips, and he kisses Andrew just as desperately as he’s being kissed, streams of shower water rushing between their mouths when they part for air, their eyes clenched tightly closed as they clash together once again. 

Neil has been awake for only days, but he’s been missing this for _weeks._ For months. Been missing it like he’s never been kissed by Andrew before. Been missing it like he knew he would never get kissed by Andrew again. Like an ache in his chest that wouldn’t go away; an eternal heartburn. Like a phantom limb. 

Neil almost lets out a sob into Andrew’s kiss, feeling it bone-deep and with his entire body, the waves crashing down around him and leaving him untouched, only gentle ripples of water against his ankles in the midst of this treacherous thunderstorm. He lets Andrew hold him up, his strong arms wrapped around his waist and hands cupping Neil’s shoulder blades protectively, watching his back just as he always promised he would, keeping him safe even here in this vulnerability. He leans into Andrew’s strong arms, and in return, Andrew whispers a quiet “Yes” into the invisible space between their mouths and Neil digs his fingers into Andrew’s tangled hairline like a lifeline, keeping his head close and never wants him to back away again _he can’t be so far away again, he can’t, he can’t._

Andrew seems to return the sentiment, because he presses himself against Neil, so close, and Neil doesn’t think he’s ever felt so much all at once as he does now. Here, feeling Andrew’s slick skin slipping against his own, Andrew’s hair under his fingers and his tongue in Neil’s mouth, he finally feels like he’s actually alive again. 

Neil’s arousal is pressed between their bodies quite obviously and Andrew’s is present as well, but Neil doesn’t feel any kind of urgency to deal with it. Doesn’t know if either of them would be _able_ to deal with it right now. He feels like he’s been split open and spilled all over the bathroom tiles. Like he’s finally being stitched back together. Like he’s finally allowed to breathe freely. Like he should be holding his breath so he can’t ruin this moment.

The kisses die between them, slowly puttering out until they’re just breathing together, their foreheads pressed together and their chests heaving. Andrew’s hair is turning squeaky and over-clean, and Neil’s fingertips are beginning to prune up. Andrew takes his hands off of Neil to turn the water off before it can turn cold and reverse all of the hard work they put into warming up, shucking the shower curtain to one side and pulling two towels off the rack, handing one to Neil and wrapping himself in the other.

Neil steps out first, and he only glances back at Andrew once before leaving the room to go find them some clothes. He riffles through the dresser Andrew had unpacked into, smiling to himself when he sees at least five different tie-dye gift shop shirts. He grabs one of those for Andrew, and finds some sweatpants and boxers for him as well, stepping back through the open door to the bathroom and finding Andrew sitting on the toilet with the fluffy white towel wrapped around his shoulders, glaring up at him through wet hair. 

Neil bites back his grin passing off the clothes to Andrew and leaving the room again to get himself dressed in the main room, stepping into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that both smell blissfully like Andrew. He stands in the middle of the room, unsure of where to go next. It’s late, and the unmade bed looks all too inviting, but Andrew hasn’t told him he could sleep there with him, and the last thing Neil wants to do now that he had Andrew with him again is overstep. 

It’s then that Andrew comes out of the bathroom, his hair rumpled and damp and his eyes grumpy. He’s wearing the obnoxious purple-and-green tie-dye shirt, and it’s at least two sizes too big for him, dwarfing his figure and effectively making the death stare he gives Neil null and unthreatening. 

“What are you doing,” deadpans Andrew, gesturing to where Neil is still currently hovering anxiously in the middle of the room. 

Neil clears his throat. “Standing,” he says, “waiting for you to tell me what to do.”

Andrew doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a near thing. He comes over to Neil, crossing the entirety of the little cabin in only a few steps until he’s only a few inches away from Neil again. He grabs Neil’s hand, tracing his thumbs over the new scars along the back of it. “Always waiting for me,” he says, and it sounds much softer than he probably meant for it too.

Neil swallows past the lump in his throat, because they’re not talking about now anymore. “I’m always going to wait for you, Andrew,” he says, pressing his wrists up further into Andrew’s hands, “I never want to leave you again. I never wanted to run.”

Andrew’s jaw clenches visibly, and his grip tightens and releases around Neil’s wrist in quick succession. Neil can see the dull anger burning behind his eyes, but he knows it isn’t aimed towards him. Andrew looks like he wants to say something. Looks like he wants to kill Neil for leaving and then turn around and run away himself all over again. “You should have told me,” is all he says, though, that fire burning hotter.

“I know,” Neil responds, because he does, and then, “I don’t regret not telling you,” because he doesn’t. He would do all of this again if it meant keeping Andrew and the Foxes safe. Would gladly go through worse. 

“I know,” says Andrew because of course he does. Andrew always understands his decisions, even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with them.

Andrew guides him under the covers easily, pulling them up over them, leaving only a few inches of space between them. Neil feels his eyes begin to slip closed before he even realizes how tired he is, and he lets the grounding weight of Andrew next to him pull him into sleep.

He can only hope that when he wakes up again, this won’t have all been a dream. 

~

When Andrew wakes up in the morning with Neil Josten in bed beside him and his body only inches away from his own, he’s sure he is still dreaming. Neil’s eyes are shut lightly, and his eyelashes are fanned out over his cheeks, ethereal and unreal and completely, unbelievably, _alive._

 _No,_ he thinks. Surely he must be dreaming—there is simply no way that last night could have been real. No way that the unnatural light in the field had been real. No way that the hot kisses and gentle hands in the shower could be real. No way that Neil could possibly be here, right in front of him for the first time in 6 weeks. 

Still though, Andrew must have a better imagination than he had thought, since Neil still feels remarkably solid under his fingers. Andrew trails them along Neil’s outstretched arm, watching the skin there erupt in goosebumps, causing Neil to stir. The man beside Andrew lets out a soft noise, scrunching his face further into the pillow for only a moment before his shoulders tense. Neil bolts upright, and Andrew watches him warily from where he’s still lying back against the pillows. “Morning,” he says, not letting himself relish in the way Neil relaxes when he sees Andrew.

He shivers a little, and Andrew glares into the corner with the fireplace as if his glare alone could reignite the flames. “Morning,” Neil responds, and he flops back against the bed. 

Andrew hums, dragging his hand underneath Neil’s shirt at the other man’s nod, his hand pressing along the firm lines of Neil’s stomach and feeling smooth skin and rough scar tissue. Behind Neil, his eyes fall on his phone, lying dead in the corner of the room where he has tossed it on his first day here. 

Neil follows his gaze, frowning when he spots the subject of Andrew’s ire. “We have to go back,” Neil says, “soon.”

Andrew knows that, but he doesn’t allow himself to be regretful. He catalogs himself carefully, shuffling through his thoughts. 

He doesn’t feel like leaving, but he suspects that is more due to the fact that he’s currently in a warm bed with Neil in his arms, and not because he really doesn’t want to go back. That dread that’s been present in his gut and begging him to _stay away_ ever since he’d left is gone now, and for the first time in over a month, he allows himself to think about his family. About Aaron and Nicky, who are probably angry at him and worried about him simultaneously. About Kevin and Wymack, who are _definitely_ angry with him. About Renee and Betsy, who trust him and care about him. 

About Neil, who probably wants to visit the rest of the idiots again as soon as possible. 

“Yeah,” Andrew huffs out. “We can leave tomorrow morning.”

Neil hums in contentment, asking out a quick “Yes or no?” 

Andrew responds with a low, “Yes,” and allows Neil to press in closer to his own body, letting the warmth of him against Andrew’s side pull him back to sleep.

Around one in the afternoon, Neil finally manages to pull Andrew out of bed so they can get something to eat, and Andrew drives him back down to the main building so they can find a few meals somewhere in the tiny convenience store and not have to drive 30 minutes out to the real supermarket. 

Doris runs into them when they’re debating over the number of ice cream cartons they should pick up for the next day, their arms brushing against each other as they stand in front of the freezers. She’s wearing a thick winter coat, and with a quick glance down at the floor, Andrew can see Tulip is wearing a matching one as he winds his way around Doris’ legs, who steps around him with ease of practice.

Beside him, Neil tenses, always so on edge around strangers, but his shoulders relax slightly when he notices that Andrew doesn’t shut the woman down immediately. He nods at her; something akin to a quiet apology for running out yesterday, but she only smiles back at him, obviously already having put the incident behind her. She turns to Neil with that same smile, not reacting when he simply stares back at her blankly, much to Andrew’s amusement. 

“I thought I might run into you today,” Doris says pleasantly, not bothering to watch Tulip as he pounces between the shelves of the candy aisle, knocking a display of KitKats to the floor tumultuously. The gray cat skids away to cause more trouble, far too energetic to be pushing 75, and Doris clasps her wrinkly hands in front of her. “I assume this is your friend?”

Neil shifts beside him, the back of his hand brushing Andrew’s own. “Yes,” he says, answering Doris’ hidden question, “this is Neil.”

Doris’ smile doesn’t fade or change, and she glances behind her shoulder as Tulip somehow manages to get himself stuck in the blinds, mewing pathetically. “I better go sort this out,” she says, “I assume you lot will be leaving soon?”

Andrew nods, “Tomorrow.”

The old woman hums, and in the corner, Tulip starts thrashing in the blinds again. “I’ll be making some muffins this afternoon,” she says, “I will bring some around to your cabin later tonight.” Andrew hums in approval, and she grins at him doubly, turning away to tend to her cat… brother? 

Andrew is just turning away to continue his debate with Neil, when Doris calls out a quick, “Oh, and Andrew? You’re both welcome back here anytime.”

After checking out with their ice cream—only one pint, unfortunately—and packages of ramen noodles and microwaveable pancakes, they head back to the car. After placing their bags in the back, Andrew is just about to slide into the driver’s seat when Neil lets out a quiet “Oh!” and begins to jog across the parking lot to a sleek black motorcycle Andrew hadn’t noticed before. 

Confused, Andrew follows him, giving the motorcycle an appreciative look. It’s fancy and expensive-looking, and he bets it’s incredibly fast. Andrew stops dead in his tracks, though, when Neil pulls out a set of keys from his front pocket and turns on the ignition. Neil sends him a grin over his shoulder and says, “I should bring this back to a dealership tomorrow. Care to join me for a ride before then?”

Andrew, for his part, does try very hard to keep his face blank. It proves to be almost impossible, though, when Neil straddles the bike, flicking the kickstand back with his heel easily. Clad in a leather jacket and wearing a cocky grin that’s just as attractive, Andrew can’t resist him. He climbs onto the motorcycle behind Neil, thankful that it’s late enough in the day that most of the snow has cleared from the ground, leaving only patches of it in the grass and under the shade of the trees. Neil bends to the side, resurfacing with two matte black helmets and handing one off to Andrew. 

He also comes up with a smartphone, wincing sheepishly when he feels the freezing temperature of the device. “They made me buy this,” Neil says, handing the phone off to Andrew as well, who tries to turn it on to no avail. 

Andrew shoves the phone deep into his front pocket and feels the freezing metal pressing into his thigh even through his thick jeans, sighing at Neil internally. 

Neil revs the engine, and then they’re off. Neil takes his time heading down the mountain, careful in case of hidden ice, but once they hit the freeway, Andrew is gripping Neil’s waist in a death grip as they zip between the scant cars and keep watch for a Harley dealership to drop the bike at tomorrow morning.

The wind whips at Andrew’s exposed hands, and he lets himself lean forward into Neil, arms tight around the taller man’s waist as they speed down the highway. 

Andrew feels exhilarated and relaxed all at once, and he flexes his fingers in the soft leather of Neil’s new jacket, allowing himself to let out a quiet huff of something akin to a laugh against Neil’s ear, who grins and laughs right back, bright and happy and loud and all the things Andrew never thought he would have again. 

Tonight, they’ll have to pack up the meager items he’d brought with him back into the Maserati and meet Doris to claim their muffins. Tomorrow, they’ll have to leave, and Andrew is going to have to be ready to do so. He’ll say goodbye to Doris and give Tulip a scratch on the head, and maybe he’ll call Bee and Renee to let them know they’re leaving. Tomorrow, they’ll have to drop Neil’s rented motorcycle at the dealership and decide where to sleep for the night. Over the next day or two, he and Neil will be switching between driving and sleeping and eating on their way back to South Carolina. Soon, Andrew will have to deal with life again—with Aaron and Nicky and Kevin and all of the others who he already knows will ask him far too many questions. Soon, Neil will have to explain to people beyond the team and the FBI about how he’s alive.

Now though, they can have this. Andrew can have this. This contentment. The bite of winter wind through their leather jackets. Neil, pressed against his front and safe in his arms. They don’t have to deal with reality just yet. 

Andrew tightens his arms around Neil’s waist, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long while.

**Author's Note:**

> I put a lot of time and thought into this fic and it’s kind of my baby :,) it is literally impossible for me to write legitimately long fics, but i had a lot of feelings about this au and i wanted to try to flesh it out as much as i could. 
> 
> I had some reasons for changing some of the canon aspects — such as andrew undressing to his boxers and armbands in the shower instead of staying fully clothed (as well as the absence of the bj and the overall ‘softness’ in this and the following scenes), and neil staying in Columbia with the foxes for a few days before leaving to find andrew (which i don’t think he would have done in canon), etc, and i would be happy to explain my reasonings either on twitter or in the comments (or on tumblr, though I’m rarely active there).
> 
> also, if you did listen to the playlist for this fic, i have my reasons for choosing those songs as well, and most of them lie in the lyrics so i would give those a read if you’re curious (you can also ask, of course)!
> 
> Thanks again to Renee and the twitter folk, and as always, thank you so much for reading! This was a lot different from my usual stuff and like I said i put a lot into it.
> 
> comments and kudos make me extremely happy!
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/5a5b5p5)
> 
> And on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/andrewsbutterflyknife)


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